Ratings Roundup: Week 1 of NFL Action Receives Mixed Bag With Loaded Sports Schedule By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor
Wednesday, September 16, 2020 - 10:07 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Ratings roundup is a rundown of rating news from the past week and is derived from press releases and reports around the industry. In this week's edition, numbers from Week 1 of the NFL roll in, Notre Dame returns to NBC, and more.
NFL Week 1
The first game of ESPN's signature NFL Week 1 Monday Night Football doubleheader - Pittsburgh Steelers at the New York Giants (7 p.m. ET) - delivered cable's third-highest audience for a sporting event in 2020 and cable's best in the category since January, as the game averaged 10,760,000 viewers. Compared to last year, the game was down 21%.
Inclusive of all cable programs in 2020 - sports and beyond - the audience for Steelers-Giants ranks as the fourth best overall, trailing ESPN's presentation of the CFP National Championship on January 13 and the Rose Bowl Game on New Year's Day, in addition to the State of the Union Address on February 4 (Fox News).
The audience for the Steelers' victory surpassed ESPN's audience for the 2018 MNF doubleheader opening game between the New York Jets and Detroit Lions (10.4 million viewers), but trailed last year's corresponding game, a thrilling come-from-behind victory for the New Orleans Saints over Houston.
Additional Steelers-Giants Highlights:
ESPN's audience peaked at 13,101,000 viewers (9-9:15 p.m.)
Inclusive of ESPN's Deportes, the viewership was 10,810,000 fans
Local markets: Pittsburgh was the top market, drawing a 36.1 local rating across both WTAE (25.9) and ESPN (10.2). New York, the No. 3 market, finished with a 10.5 rating across WPIX (4.1) and ESPN (6.4)
Other markets include:
Philadelphia (11.1)
Baltimore (10.1)
Washington, DC & Denver (10.0)
Norfolk & West Palm Beach (9.9)
Cleveland & Columbus (9.8)
ESPN's second game of the Monday Night Football doubleheader featuring the Tennessee Titans at the Denver Broncos (10:15 p.m.) delivered an audience of 7,697,000 which ranks among the top six most-viewed sporting events on cable in 2020. Compared to last year, the game was down 38%. ESPN has now aired seven sporting events with more than seven million viewers in 2020, a feat no other cable network has accomplished once.
The annual MNF doubleheader lead ESPN to Win the Night, as the network was the most-watched across broadcast and cable in primetime among households, viewers, and key demos (M18-34, M18-49, M25-54, P18-34, P18-49, P25-54).
More on Tennessee-Denver:
Inclusive of ESPN Deportes, the viewership jumps to 7,730,000 people
Denver was the No. 1 local market, drawing a 26.2 local rating combined across KTVD (14.1) and ESPN (12.1). Nashville was the second-rated market with a 17.7 rating across WZTV (9.1) and ESPN (8.6).
Other markers include:
Seattle-Tacoma (8.5)
San Diego (8.2)
Kansas City (7.9)
San Francisco (7.8)
Las Vegas (7.2)
Phoenix (7.1)
Sacramento & Memphis (6.8)
Fox Sports ushered in its 27th season of NFL coverage Sunday with an average of more than 25 million viewers for America's Game of the Week (AGOTW), combining with Fox's best Week 1 regional performance in four years to score the network's most-watched opening week since 2016.
According to Nielsen Media Research, AGOTW, the No. 1 show on TV for 11 consecutive years, scored the most-watched telecast since Super Bowl LIV on Fox in February. The game, pitting Tom Brady's Tampa Bay Buccaneers against Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints in Brady's debut as a Buc, drew an average audience of 25,848,000, up 7% over last year's Week 1 performance of 24,216,000 viewers.
Fox's regional games posted their best Week 1 performance since 2016, scoring an average viewership of 13,530,000, up 6% over last year's 12,723,000 viewers between the Giants and the Cowboys.
On the streaming side, Week 1 accounted for Fox's most-streamed NFL regular-season Sunday ever an 84% increase over last year's opening Sunday with an average minute audience (AMA) of 592,144 across regional and national windows. AGOTW drew an AMA of 647,000 and 3.5 million unique streamers, leading to the network's most-streamed NFL regular-season window ever. Fox also set a record for its regional windows, with an AMA of 537,000 and 3.8 million unique streamers.
Key highlights are below:
AGOTW drew an average audience of 25,848,000 million, up 7% over last year's Week 1 performance of 24,216,000 viewers
Most-watched telecast of any kind since Super Bowl LIV on Fox
Fox's most-watched Week 1 national game since 2016
Key demographic ratings increases over 2019 include:
A18-34 8% 6.09 vs. 5.66 rating
A18-49 3% 7.88 vs. 7.62 rating
A25-54 4% 9.41 vs. 9.08 rating
Fox Regional Games
Average viewership of 13,530,000, up 6% over last year's 12,723,000 viewers
Fox's best Week 1 regional performance since 2016
Despite the largest fourth-quarter deficit (24 points) in an NFL Kickoff Game in seven years, the Kansas City Chiefs' 34-20 victory over the Houston Texans in the opening game of the NFL season averaged a preliminary Total Audience Delivery of 20.3 million viewers across NBC TV, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL Digital platforms - making it the most-watched sporting event since Super Bowl LIV in February, according to Fast National data released today by Nielsen, and digital data from Adobe Analytics.
NBC's TV coverage peaked at 22.0 million viewers between 9:15-9:30 p.m. ET, and topped 20 million viewers in every quarter-hour from 8:45 p.m. ET through 9:45 p.m. ET. The broadcast averaged 19.3 million viewers on NBC.
With 20.3 million viewers, the NFL Kickoff Game is only the second show si
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Cameras Empower Youth Broadcasting Program
Brie Clayton July 3, 2026
0 Comments
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro and Blackmagi...
04/07/2026
iZotope Joins Boris FX
Boris Yamnitsky July 3, 2026
0 Comments
iZotope, the team behind RX and Ozone, is joining Boris FX. A letter from founder Boris...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
03/07/2026
New bundle & three Single Packs
Continuing to expand their already sizeable orchestral collection, VSL's latest release introduces three new Single Pack...
03/07/2026
Venue installs new ATC-equipped control room
LSO St Luke's, a unique music venue that also serves as the home of the London Symphony Orchestra, have rec...
03/07/2026
Caden Pearson appointed new Commissioning Editor for NITV
3 July, 2026
Media releases
National Indigenous Television (NITV) has strengthened its commitment...
03/07/2026
1 February 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st February 2023: Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for digit...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Death Star
Andy Marken July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Look, I can't get involved. I've got work to do. It's not that I like the Empire; I hate i...
03/07/2026
Berklee's New Visual Identity: Honoring Our History, Building for What's...
03/07/2026
Scripps Research scientists awarded $2M to advance global disease surveillance Two Gates Foundation grants will expand wastewater surveillance and AI-driven dis...
03/07/2026
Joan Pulupa joins Scripps Research faculty to study the organization of DNA in brain cells and its links to neurodegeneration Using smell-sensing neurons and ad...
02/07/2026
Entering her senior year, this hometown girl is paving a career in live sports production gaining experience in replay and audio and as a TD
In the live-sports...
02/07/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
02/07/2026
BLAST, a competitive entertainment company focused on esports, has announced more than $133 million in revenue for 2025, representing more than 40% year-over-ye...
02/07/2026
Riedel Communications has announced official SKAARHOJ panel support for SimplyLive production workflows, enabled through the SimplyLive 2.1 release. The integra...
02/07/2026
The Fire Rescue Service of the Czech Republic has deployed LiveU video-over-bond...
02/07/2026
Gravity Media USA has announced the appointment of Brittney Boston as Head of Business Development, effective July 1, 2026. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Bosto...
02/07/2026
TwelveLabs, a video intelligence company, has announced $100 million in Series B funding co-led by NEA and NAVER Ventures, with participation from Amazon, Radic...
02/07/2026
The Pro Padel League (PPL) has announced a broadcast partnership with USA Sports that will air five PPL championship matches on CNBC during the 2026 season, the...
02/07/2026
LiveLike, a digital fan engagement platform, has announced eight confirmed FIFA ...
02/07/2026
Cobalt Digital has received Future's Best of Show Award, presented by AV Technology at InfoComm 2026, for its blueCORE family of standalone signal processor...
02/07/2026
Synamedia has announced the appointment of Dr. Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transition...
02/07/2026
The Esports Foundation (EF) and Sony Group Corporation have announced an expanded collaboration for the Esports World Cup 2026 (EWC), taking place in Paris, Fra...
02/07/2026
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. ( Z') has announced exclusive broadcast and digital rights for the Bundesliga in India for five years, beginning with the...
02/07/2026
An effort uniting News, Sports, Local, and Telemundo, the 50+-camera live produc...
02/07/2026
Zoey Deutch, John Slattery, Ken Marino, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, and Ben Wang appe...
02/07/2026
Stammering, stuttering, strangulated tones
The Crow Hill Company's latest creation promises to be the most original sound set they've produced to d...
02/07/2026
A new era in unmixing and spectral editing
The latest version of Steinberg's spectral audio-editing software has just arrived, building on the strength...
02/07/2026
Aims to simplify additive synthesis
Sine Machine is the debut launch from Melatonin, a Vienna-based developer who have spent the past six years creating wha...
02/07/2026
Products to remain fully active & supported
Following the news of Native Instruments joining the inMusic brand line-up, Academy and Emmy Award-winning visua...
02/07/2026
What you missed!
Last weekend, Saturday 27 June 2026, saw the debut of Sound On Sounds new GearExpo UK event, the largest dedicated pro-audio event to take ...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Following the successful launch of its inaugural APAC Mentoring Programme last month, the Rise AV APAC Regional Council will bring the conversation around mento...
02/07/2026
Blackmagic PYXIS 6K Used to Shoot Director Takahisa Zeze's Cry Out
Brie Clayton July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Highly mobile camera supports tense and de...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions acquires BFE, expanding its lead in European broadcast, medi...
02/07/2026
Berklee Alum and Faculty Perform at Boston Public Library's 250th Anniversar...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions GmbH, a leading systems integrator and provider of innovative solutions for the broadcast media industry, is acquiring BFE Studio und Medien...
02/07/2026
Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has extended the ingest facility at leading Brazilian sports company LiveMode, work...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Standalone processors acknowledged for the innovation and value they bring to Pro AV
Cobalt Digital, a leading designer and manufacturer of signal processing ...
02/07/2026
Synamedia announced today the appointment of Dr Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transitio...
02/07/2026
Screen Australia backs audience-led filmmaking with new insight-driven initiativ...
02/07/2026
Screen Australia refines guidelines for Narrative Content Development and Docume...
Ratings Roundup: Week 1 of NFL Action Receives Mixed Bag With Loaded Sports Schedule By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor 
