The NFL started its 2024–25 regular season with carriers delivering year-over-year viewership gains in all but one window.
NBCUniversal Media LLC's NBC Sports opened the campaign with a record audience for its NFL Kickoff Game, while Walt Disney Co. reported its second-strongest "Monday Night Football" entry since ESPN became the package's primary rights holder in 2006. The strong viewership comes as advertisers and programmers lean heavily on live sports to deliver big viewership numbers amid a shrinking linear audience base.
Opening game
For the Sept. 5 regular season opener between the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs and the Baltimore Ravens, NBC (US), streaming service Peacock and NFL Digital outlets topped the charts with a combined total audience delivery of 29.2 million, according to data from Nielsen Holdings PLC and Adobe Analytics.
The contest scored a 6% jump from the 27.5 million who watched last year's opener between the Detroit Lions and the Chiefs. Kansas City this year hopes to win an unprecedented third consecutive Super Bowl.
Chiefs-Ravens ranks as NBC Sports' second-largest regular-season audience since gaining the "Sunday Night Football" package in 2006, behind only the 30.3 million viewers for the Dallas Cowboys-Washington game in the final week of the 2012 season that determined a playoff spot.
In the NFL's inaugural contest from Brazil on Sept. 6, Peacock's streaming coverage of the Philadelphia Eagles' win over the Green Bay Packers averaged a TAD of 14 million viewers, nearly double the 7.3 million who streamed the Bills-Los Angeles Chargers on the service's initial exclusive NFL regular season game in December 2023.
In terms of streaming numbers, the audience for the Eagles' triumph in Sao Paulo trails only the 23.0 million for last season's Wild Card game in January that saw the Chiefs knock out the Miami Dolphins. That contest, which also included viewership on NBC stations in the participating teams' home markets and the NFL+ mobile app, ranks as the most streamed event in US history.
Weekend contests
With the NFL returning to a single doubleheader schedule in Week 1 for the first time in three seasons, FOX (US)'s "America's Game of the Week" coverage of the Cowboys' blowout of the Cleveland Browns averaged 23.9 million watchers in the 4:25 p.m. ET window. The game, which also marked Tom Brady's debut as the network's top NFL analyst, was up 47% from the 16.3 million watchers for the Packers-Chicago Bears game last year, when FOX shared the late afternoon window with CBS Sports.
CBS (US)' regional coverage in the 1 p.m. ET window on Sept. 8 brought in a combined 17.8 million viewers on average, including what the company said was the most streamed "NFL on CBS" single-header to date on Paramount+.
That delivery was up 39% from the comparable window last season and now stands as the network's most viewed 1 p.m. single-header window since it regained NFL rights in 1998.
Looking at primetime, NBC, Peacock and NFL Digital outlets combined to tally a TAD of 22.7 million watchers for the "Sunday Night Football" opener between the Lions and Los Angeles Rams. That was up 3% from 22.0 million for the first "Sunday Night Football" last season.
'Monday Night Football'
ESPN (US) ESPN2 (US), ESPN Deportes (US), streamer ESPN+ and ABC (US) scored a combined 20.5 million watchers for the "Monday Night Football" matchup that saw the San Francisco 49ers score on eight consecutive possessions against the New York Jets.
The Sept. 9 "Monday Night Football" opener audience trailed only the 22.7 million who saw the Jets-Bills in quarterback Aaron Rodgers' debut with his new team last season. Four plays into that game, Rodgers suffered an Achilles injury that caused him to miss the rest of the season.
Viewership for last year's Monday night opener was boosted by a last-minute distribution agreement between Disney and cable operator Charter Communications Inc. Just hours before the game started, the two sides were able to agree on terms for a new deal that returned Disney networks and stations to Charter's roster.
This year, though, the 49ers-Jets audience was hurt by Disney's disconnect with DIRECTV Entertainment Holdings LLC. Disney's cable network portfolio and eight ABC-owned stations have been dark to the distributor's 11 million customers since Sept. 1 after the parties failed to strike a carriage renewal. DIRECTV has said it wants more packaging flexibility, while Disney executives argue that DIRECTV's asks remain unclear and may be impossible to fulfill.