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Thursday, March 19, 2026
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    NFL Viewership Sees 2% Increase in First Two Weeks of 2023 Season

    • With 17.5 million average viewers, the NFL is experiencing its highest viewership since 2018.
    • Since the start of the 2023 campaign, NFL games account for the top 11 most-watched shows across TV and digital.
    By
    Sep 20, 2023 | 12:03 pm
    Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott is tripped up by New York Jets defensive end Solomon Thomas in the second quarter at AT&T Stadium.
    Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports

    The NFL media machine keeps on churning.

    Through two weeks of the new season, NFL games are averaging 17.5 million viewers across linear television and digital streaming — a 2% increase from 2022 and the highest average through two weeks since 2018.

    Additionally, since the start of the 2023 campaign, NFL games account for the top 11 most-watched shows across TV and digital.

    This includes the season opener between the Detroit Lions and Kansas City Chiefs (26.9M), and the Week 2 matchup between the New York Jets and Dallas Cowboys (25.9M), which was the most-watched program on any linear TV network since the Super Bowl, per CBS.

    The “Monday Night Football” season premiere between the Buffalo Bills and the Jets (22.6M) — which included Aaron Rodgers’ debut and season-ending injury — came in third. Disney is paying $2.7 billion to show 21 NFL primetime games this season, the most in company history.

    Football — and live sports in general — will continue to be a key piece to the major media companies’ strategies amidst the ongoing Hollywood actors’ and writers’ strikes.

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