Ratings Roundup: Cowboys-Buccaneers Earns Title of Most-Watched Season Opener in Six Years; The NFL on CBS Has Second Most-Watched Week 1 Since 1998 By SVG Staff
Friday, September 17, 2021 - 7:00 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Ratings roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press releases and reports around the industry. In this week's edition, Cowboys-Bucs on NBC and Peacock becomes most-watched NFL Kickoff Game since 2015, The NFL on CBS delivers massive audience in Week 1, Big Noon Saturday Matchup between Ohio State and Oregon on Fox is top-rated event of the day, and more.
Cowboys-Bucs on NBC and Peacock Becomes Most-Watched NFL Kickoff Game Since 2015 The Tampa Bay Buccaneers' thrilling 31-29 victory over the Dallas Cowboys in the opening game of the NFL season last night on NBC and Peacock ranks as the most-watched NFL Kickoff Game since 2015, which was also the most-watched season in NBC Sunday Night Football history.
Cowboys-Bucs registered a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) average of approximately 26.0 million viewers across NBC TV, Peacock, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL Digital platforms, based on preliminary data - marking the largest NFL Kickoff Game audience since Steelers-Patriots in 2015 (27.4 million viewers) and up 20% from last year's NFL Kickoff Game (21.6 million TAD for Texans-Chiefs, 9/10/20).
With an average of approximately 24.4 million viewers on NBC, the NFL Kickoff Game is television's most-watched show since Super Bowl LV in February.
NBC's TV coverage peaked at 25.4 million viewers between 9:45-10 p.m. ET and topped 22 million viewers in 11 of the 14 quarter-hours from 8:30 p.m. ET through 11:55 p.m. ET.
The Average Minute Audience (AMA) for last night's live stream via Peacock, NBC Sports Digital platforms, NFL Digital platforms, Cowboys and Buccaneers mobile properties, and Yahoo Sports mobile properties was approximately 1.6 million viewers - the highest ever for an NBC NFL game, excluding Super Bowls - and up 64% from last year's NFL Kickoff Game (970,000).
Viewership figures are based upon preliminary data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics. Official national data for NBC will be available on Monday.
Last night's game (8:24 p.m.-11:55 p.m. ET) registered a national TV household rating of 13.4/32 - up 20% from last year (11.2/23).
Top markets included:
Dallas - 29.1/56
San Antonio - 25.5/45
Tampa - 24.6/50
Providence - 23.1/44
Austin - 22.9/46
Boston - 21.4/43
Cleveland - 20.3/40
Jacksonville - 20.1/38
Norfolk - 19.9/39
Milwaukee - 17.7/37 (NBC Sports)
The NFL on CBS Delivers Massive Audience in Week 1 The NFL on CBS delivered its second most-watched Week 1 audience since 1998, when the NFL returned to CBS, with a combined average viewership for Sunday's doubleheader windows totaling 33.472 million viewers, according to Nielsen national ratings (2015, 38.172 million viewers). With the expanded 18-week NFL season, CBS gained an additional national 4:25 PM, ET window which led to a 145% increase in gross viewership for Week 1 versus last year's singleheader (13.674 million viewers).
Viewership for the 4:25 PM, ET national window, highlighted by Cleveland-Kansas City, was the most-watched Sunday telecast on any network, averaging 19.539 million viewers. It is the Network's second most-watched Week 1 game window since 1998, and its most-watched opening weekend game window since 2015 (23.287 million viewers).
The regional game window, led by Pittsburgh-Buffalo as the high-coverage game, averaged 13.933 million viewers. Sunday's doubleheader averaged 16.586 million viewers, up 21% vs. last year's 13.674 million viewers for opening weekend.
Paramount , featuring live NFL ON CBS local market games, scored an NFL regular-season viewership record for game minutes consumed while registering triple-digit year-over-year growth in unique devices and double-digit growth in streams from Week 1, 2020. (CBS Sports)
ESPN's Monday Night Football Season-Opening MegaCast: 15.3 Million Viewers, Delivering MNF's Most-Watched Week 1 Game Since 2013 ESPN's Monday Night Football MegaCast presentation of the Baltimore Ravens at Las Vegas Raiders (Sept. 13, 8:15 p.m. ET) delivered an impressive audience of 15,292,000 viewers across ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, and ESPN Deportes. The audience for Raiders' thrilling 33-27 overtime win represents ESPN's best MNF Week 1 viewership since 2013 (15 games*) and second most-watched Week 1 game since it began airing Monday Night Football (31 games).
Additionally, the MegaCast audience for Allegiant Stadium's first NFL regular season game with fans is up 42% and 17%, respectively, from the first MNF doubleheader game (7 p.m. kickoff) in 2020 and 2019. In both years, the first game of the doubleheader was the most-viewed game out of the two Week 1 games. On ESPN2 alone, Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli registered an audience of 800,000 viewers.
Additional Ravens-Raiders MNF Viewership Highlights:
Monday Night Football was the most-watched telecast of the night among households, viewers, and all keys demo: Men 18-34, 18-49, 25-54, and 55 as well as persons 18-34, 18-49, 25-54 and P5 on both ESPN and ABC
Monday Night Football also helped ESPN and ABC become the most-watched networks (broadcast and cable) in prime time among households, viewers and the same key male and people demos
Baltimore was the highest-rated local market at 30.0, followed by Las Vegas at 18.4, and Sacramento at 16.4. The complete Top 10 also include:
Kansas City (16.0)
San Diego (15.9)
San Francisco (14.4)
Seattle (13.8)
Denver (13.6)
Cleveland (13.5)
Portland (13.3) (ESPN)
Approximately 100 Million Viewers Watched NFL Football During Week 1 Week 1 averaged 17.4 million viewers, 7% YoY on TV Digital and the 2nd-highest
North America Stories
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it's given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what ...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AgentPerf from Artificial Analysis, the industry's first agentic AI benchmark, gives developers, enterprises and infrastructure providers a clear way to com...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils First-Look Images from Villaflor, Santiago Mitre's New Film
Entertainment
12 June 2026
GlobalArgentina
Link copied to ...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Cross the Boundaries of the Real World into the Spirit Realm i...
12/06/2026
A fentanyl countermeasure that adapts to combat future black-market drugs Scripps Research scientists developed a vaccine that teaches the immune system to rapi...
11/06/2026
The immense size of the tourney and its Atlantic-spanning operation also disting...
11/06/2026
Nielsen has released a new soccer fandom consumer research report, The Fans Behind The Game: FIFA World Cup 2026 Edition, examining the soccer audience in the...
11/06/2026
Telemundo will launch its FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage on Thursday, June 11 with...
11/06/2026
FuboTV Inc. has announced a distribution agreement with NBCUniversal. Fubo customers can now stream Telemundo and Universo, with NBC Sports Network (NBCSN), NBC...
11/06/2026
DAZN has announced its in-app features for FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage in Spain...
11/06/2026
Roblox has released the 2026 Roblox Digital Expression Report: Wave 4 - Sports D...
11/06/2026
FIFA has unveiled DNA, the Official FIFA World Cup 2026 Anthem, performed by A...
11/06/2026
ESPN will provide English- and Spanish-language news and information coverage of FIFA World Cup 2026 across its U.S. media platforms from June 11 through July 1...
11/06/2026
The latest product of the outstanding RIT Sports Network program, this recent grad from Long Island is carving out a promising path in broadcast engineering
In...
11/06/2026
DAZN has announced a multi-year agreement to make DSPORTS channels available to ...
Ratings Roundup: Cowboys-Buccaneers Earns Title of Most-Watched Season Opener in Six Years; The NFL on CBS Has Second Most-Watched Week 1 Since 1998 By SVG Staff 
