NFL’s Historic Week 1 Viewership Signals Another Dominant Season

The NFL viewership machine just keeps on rolling. 

Already by far the most dominant entity on U.S. television, regardless of genre, and coming off a banner 2023 season with across-the-board increases in viewership, key Week 1 games for the league have shown more strong results.

The run of big audiences began Thursday with the season opener featuring the Chiefs, the two-time defending champions, and the Ravens, drawing the NFL’s biggest kickoff game audience, now at an updated average of 29.2 million. NBCUniversal’s Peacock followed on Friday with an average of 14.2 million for an exclusive stream of the NFL’s first game in Brazil, involving the Eagles and Packers. That figure was the second-biggest live audience ever on Peacock, trailing only the record-setting figure in January for an NFL wild-card game.

Then on Sunday:

• An average of 23.8 million on Fox Sports for the Cowboys-Browns game that marked the high-profile debut of new Fox Sports lead NFL analyst Tom Brady. Despite the blowout win for Dallas that was largely devoid of on-field drama, the game was up 46% from the comparable game to open last season, and was the network’s most-watched Week 1 game since 2020.
• An average of 22.7 million on NBC Sports for the Lions’ overtime win (above) over the Rams in the season debut of Sunday Night Football. That figure was 3% higher than the comparable Cowboys-Giants Sunday prime-time opener to begin the 2023 season. The Thursday and Sunday nights combined to give NBC Sports its best two-game NFL opening weekend since 2015. 

There are definitive challenges still in front of the NFL as it seeks another season-long ratings boost, including the upcoming U.S. presidential election and fewer simulcasts of ESPN’s Monday Night Football on sister broadcast network ABC. But the initial results for the 2024 season can give the NFL and its domestic media partners further optimism. 

The NFL’s opening week concludes with the MNF opener involving the Jets and 49ers, but that game has been marred somewhat by the ongoing carriage dispute between DirecTV and ESPN parent company Walt Disney Co.