{"id":137011,"date":"2025-09-11T21:03:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T21:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/137011\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T21:03:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T21:03:09","slug":"nfl-averaged-22-3-million-viewers-per-game-for-opening-week-its-highest-on-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/137011\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL averaged 22.3 million viewers per game for opening week, its highest on record"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NFL averaged 22.3 million viewers per game during the league\u2019s opening week, making it the most-watched Week 1<\/a> on record for the second straight year.<\/p>\n

The per-game average on TV and digital platforms was a 5% increase from the 21 million Week 1 average of last season, according to the league and Nielsen.<\/p>\n

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Some of the increase can be attributed to a change in the way viewers are counted. Nielsen began using its Big Data + Panel<\/a> methodology for all events beginning on Sept. 1 and coinciding with the upcoming start of the new television season.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Nielsen began measuring out-of-home viewers for all states but Hawaii and Alaska, along with including data from smart TVs along with cable and satellite set-top boxes.<\/p>\n

Nielsen previously measured just the top 44 media markets, which covered 65% of the country.<\/p>\n

This was the third straight season where at least four of the 16 games averaged at least 20 million.<\/p>\n

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NBC had the two most-watched games.<\/p>\n

Defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia\u2019s 24-20 victory over Dallas<\/a> in last Thursday\u2019s opener averaged 28.3 million on TV and digital, making it the second-most watched NFL Kickoff game on record. The game was averaging 31.6 million, and would have topped last year’s record 29.2 million mark for Baltimore versus Kansas City before a weather delay<\/a> in the third quarter stopped the game for more than an hour.<\/p>\n

Buffalo’s 41-40 victory over Baltimore<\/a> on Sunday night averaged 24.7 million, the most watched SNF opener since 2022.<\/p>\n

NBC and Peacock’s 26.5 million average for the two games is its second-highest opening week average. The 2015 slate of Steelers-Patriots and Cowboys-Giants averaged 27.2 million.<\/p>\n

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The late afternoon contest between Detroit and Green Bay<\/a> averaged 24 million on CBS, the network’s most-watched Week 1 game since it reacquired NFL rights in 1998. The Packers posted a 27-13 win over the Lions in Micah Parsons’ debut with Green Bay.<\/p>\n

CBS averaged 20.4 million for its doubleheader package of six games. The four-game early window \u2014 headlined by Pittsburgh’s 34-32 win over the New York Jets<\/a> \u2014 averaged 17.1 million.<\/p>\n

Minnesota’s 27-24 comeback victory over Chicago<\/a> on Monday night averaged 22.1 million on ESPN, ABC and ESPN2, the second-most watched MNF game since ESPN took over as the main broadcaster in 2006 and an 8% increase over last year.<\/p>\n

Led by Washington’s 21-6 win over the New York Giants<\/a>, Fox’s early Sunday singleheader of six games averaged 17.9 million.<\/p>\n

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Last Friday’s game in Brazil between the Los Angeles Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs<\/a> on YouTube TV<\/a> and NFL digital platforms averaged 17.3 million globally. The U.S. average for the Chargers 27-21 victory was 16.2 million, which included over-the-air broadcasts in Los Angeles and Kansas City.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NFL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nfl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NFL averaged 22.3 million viewers per game during the league\u2019s opening week, making it the most-watched Week…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[5462,49,48,6681,7236,8823,12403,1043,3311,1727,1522,2210,1731,2598,1728,1723,514,23739,35915,74324,1518,4847,82,3642],"class_list":["post-137011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-baltimore","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chicago","tag-dallas","tag-detroit","tag-digital-platforms","tag-green-bay","tag-kansas-city","tag-kansas-city-chiefs","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-chargers","tag-micah-parsons","tag-minnesota","tag-new-york-giants","tag-new-york-jets","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-kickoff-game","tag-nielsen","tag-opening-week","tag-philadelphia","tag-pittsburgh","tag-sports","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}