Star teams clearly draw viewers throughout the three weeks of the NFL season, but good games may draw even more viewers, and while traditional fans accustomed to watching the NFL on broadcast TV may grumble about the NFL’s growing presence on streaming services, early results suggest the NFL is turning to a different (i.e., younger) audience.
If you’ve ever wondered why the Dallas Cowboys are on TV so often, Sunday’s game proves it. Despite the Cowboys’ mediocre performance at best, Sunday’s Dallas-Baltimore game on Fox drew 27.29 million viewers, making it the highest-rated broadcast of any network in that time slot. Fox said it averaged 26 million viewers in that time slot, up 27 percent from last year’s average.
According to NBC Sports, the Chiefs’ last-minute win over the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday night drew a “total audience” of 24.8 million (TV and digital) viewers across NBC and Peacock. According to NBC, the game was the most-watched Week 3 game in Sunday Night Football history, up 20% from last year’s Steelers-Raiders game. The game was also the fourth-most-streamed game of all time. (Note: Not many games were streamed overall, and out-of-home viewing has only been factored into the ratings in recent years.)
Earlier this week, the Jets had the misfortune to beat the hapless New England Patriots on Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football, and the numbers reflected the (relative) lack of interest: Jets-Patriots averaged 13.37 million viewers, down 4% from last year’s Giants-49ers matchup.
This is Prime’s second straight big loss, following a lackluster Bills-Dolphins game in Week 2. But as Sports Media Watch points out, Prime games attract a younger audience, with the average age for Prime games being 47.3 years old, compared to 54.5 years old for regular NFL broadcasts.
“There’s some debate about whether Amazon is over-attracting younger viewers,” SMW politely points out, “or maybe older viewers just can’t find games as easily on Prime.”
More data from Week 3, which includes a Monday night overlapping doubleheader with CBS, is expected to be released in the coming days.
