NFL TV Ratings Down in Week 6 As Chiefs Rest, Cowboys Wilt

The NFL has a big weekend of games coming up—including Sean Payton’s return to New Orleans and a Super Bowl LVIII rematch (Chiefs at 49ers)—that the league will be counting on to drive big TV audiences after a second consecutive rating dip this season.

After five weeks of the NFL’s regular season, game broadcasts were averaging 17.5 million viewers, up 1% from 2023. But in Week 6, the Chiefs didn’t play, the Cowboys got blown out, and most of the NFL’s broadcast partners suffered as a result. 

NFL Network’s coverage of Jaguars-Bears from London and the early Sunday afternoon slot on CBS were the only two TV windows to outperform their 2023 Week 6 counterparts. The rest were down year over year:

• 49ers-Seahawks on Amazon Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football was down 5%.
• Fox’s 1 p.m. ET games were down 13%.
• Lions-Cowboys drew 24.06 million viewers on Fox, down 8% from Eagles-Jets in 2023.
• NBC’s Bengals-Giants matchup was the least-watched Sunday Night Football broadcast since 2020 with 15.44 million viewers.
• The 17.3 million viewers for Bills-Jets on Monday Night Football was down from 19.64 million for Cowboys-Chargers last year, but still the second-largest Week 6 MNF audience since 2000.

The NFL has yet to release official year-over-year viewership numbers through Week 6. (All figures above are courtesy of Sports Media Watch.)

Mahomes to the Rescue?

The Cowboys (3–3 and winless at home) are on a much-needed bye week, but Fox gets the new TV king, Kansas City, against the 49ers on Sunday afternoon, with San Francisco (3–3) looking for revenge against the unbeaten Chiefs, who beat Brock Purdy & Co. to win their second consecutive Lombardi Trophy in February. Last season, MNF got a Super Bowl LVII rematch, and that Eagles-Chiefs game drew 29 million viewers—at the time the most-watched game of the 2023 season.

Week 7 kicks off with the Broncos visiting the Saints on Thursday night. Prime Video is averaging 13.98 million viewers for TNF games this season, up 18% over the 2023 full-season average.