With the exception of Prime Video, the major NFL broadcasters each posted declines in viewership for the recently-completed regular season.
NFL regular season games averaged 19.4 million viewers on NBC, 19.2 million on CBS, 18.4 million on FOX and 15.0 million on ESPN/ABC, each down from last season, when the networks averaged 19.9, 19.3, 19.0 and 17.3 million respectively. (The NBC average — which does not include a Saturday afternoon Texans-Chiefs game in Week 16 — rises to 21.6 million including additional streaming viewership tracked by Adobe Analytics, up 1% from last year’s 21.4 million and the highest since 2015.)
The only regular NFL broadcaster to post an increase in Nielsen-measured viewing during the season was Amazon Prime Video, which had its most-watched season of Thursday Night Football since it began airing the package in 2022.
CBS still had its second-most watched season since resuming NFL coverage in 1998 and, for the second-straight year, aired the most-watched individual window of any network — averaging 24.3 million for its late doubleheader games (10 telecasts). That is down from 24.6 million last year. This year marked just the second time since 2007 (when the Patriots had an undefeated regular season) that the CBS national window outdrew its FOX counterpart.
The FOX “America’s Game of the Week” averaged 23.9 million, down from last year’s 24.6 million.
Despite the ballyhooed addition of Tom Brady, FOX had its least-watched season overall since 2020 and its least-watched season of “America’s Game of the Week” since 2021.
Shifting to primetime, Monday Night Football had its second-most watched season in the ESPN era despite a double-digit decline from last year. The average of 15 million rises to 17 million if one excludes the three weeks in which ABC and ESPN aired competing games as part of a split doubleheader. (Notably, the MNF average does not include an ESPN+ exclusive that reportedly averaged fewer than two million.)
As noted at the outset, NBC had its most-watched season of Sunday Night Football since 2015 if one includes an additional streaming audience of 2.2 million viewers per game tracked by Adobe Analytics. That is the largest streaming audience yet for the NFL on NBC and up 38% from the previous high set last season (1.6M). (Keep in mind all NBC figures exclude the Saturday afternoon Texans-Chiefs in Week 16.)
