The NFL and Its Media Partners Are Overjoyed With The Numbers

Football is the big money sport in the United States and for its media partners, it continues to deliver. In a recent release, the NFL said more than 200 million people tuned into some part of a regular season or playoff game this year. That includes viewers both in the U.S and internationally. It’s a staggering number and a testament to the popularity of the sport as well as the NFL’s TV rights deal that is in its second year. The league and its broadcast partners are overjoyed with the numbers this season especially with a big uptick in viewership in the playoffs.

The 2024 NFL playoffs began with a bang and are already delivering the highest ratings on record. NBC’s Sunday Night Football game between the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys set a new record for a divisional or wild card game drawing 50.4 million viewers. This was the highest number ever for a game in that time slot and a 9% boost in viewership from last year. The NFL and its broadcast partners are especially excited about the Super Bowl as that event is expected to draw even more eyeballs than normal.

During the regular season, NBC’s Sunday night game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Atlanta Falcons had the largest audience for any single episode of the show. The game also had the fourth most viewers of any sports telecast in U.S. history. The NFL’s overall regular season viewership climbed 7% over the previous year.

In the fall, a number of factors weighed on NFL ratings. Some believed the polarizing presidential election siphoned off viewers. Others cited a lack of star power on the field and the increasing awareness about concussions and the physical toll of the game. Increased attention to domestic abuse and displeasure over player protests during the anthem also contributed to lower ratings.

As the regular season wound down, a pair of nailbiters in the Fox national window drew double-digit increases in viewership while a CBS national game drew fewer viewers than usual. But the season finale between the New York Jets and Philadelphia Eagles drew more than 21 million viewers, the biggest tally for the game since Week 1.

In the streaming world, Peacock’s Bills-Chargers game was seen by 7.33 million viewers on its inaugural streaming-only playoff telecast. The company is hoping to expand its lineup next season. While those viewers are not a huge piece of the overall pie, the NFL is pleased that it’s growing its audience in the digital age. The league expects to make more such games available in the future with its partnership with Amazon Prime. This will give the league a larger audience to sell its expensive television rights. It’s a good thing too because the NFL is in the middle of a 10-year, $110 billion TV rights deal with Disney, Fox Corp., NBCUniversal and Comcast. That means the league will need every viewing dollar it can get to keep its top talent and pay for its expansion into the Big Data world of esports.