Ratings Roundup: NFL, Domestic Rightsholders Tally Final Numbers for Regular Season; Debut of WWE Monday Night Raw on Netflix Captures 2.6 Million By SVG Staff Friday, January 10, 2025 - 11:56 am
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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, the NFL and its domestic media rightsholders finalize their numbers for the regular season, Netflix drew big numbers for its debut of WWE Raw, the College Football Playoff Quarterfinals delivered an average of 16.9 million viewers, and more.
NFL Closes Out Regular Season With 2% Drop NFL regular-season viewership dropped 2% this season after pacing toward the league's best mark for most of the schedule, according to SBJ. A dip at the end of the season in terms of competitive games hampered numbers for many media partners. Prime Video and NBC saw gains, while Fox, CBS and ESPN were lower this season.
Amazon's Prime Video had its best season of Thursday Night Football yet, averaging 13.2 million viewers, which is up 11% from Year 2 of the package in 2023 (11.7 million).
NBC (21.6 million viewers) squeaked out a 1% gain for the Sunday Night Football package, which includes the NFL Kickoff game and Thanksgiving primetime game.
CBS averaged 19.2 million viewers, which is down just 1% from last season, and likely its second-best season since 1998 (and well above the 18.5 million two seasons ago).
Fox was down 3% from last season, averaging 18.4 million for games vs. 19 million a season ago.
ESPN was down 14% this season with fewer ABC simulcasts to lean on, but the Monday Night Football package still had its second-best viewership since moving over to ESPN in 2006, behind only the record numbers from the 2023 season. The 22 games averaged around 15 million viewers, down from the record 17.4 million last year.
See below for more in-depth breakdowns of each NFL rightsholders regular season ratings this season.
Sunday Night Football Delivers Best Viewership Since 2015; Pacing To Be Primetime's No. 1 Show for 14th Consecutive Year With Sunday night's historic Week 18 Vikings-Lions matchup, which averaged 28.5 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, NBC Sports concluded its 19th season of Sunday Night Football, topping all primetime television series in the fall and once again pacing to finish as primetime's #1 TV show in all key metrics for an unprecedented 14th consecutive year. NBC's SNF, in the most competitive time slot in media, extended its record for the most consecutive years atop the primetime charts (since 1950):
Sunday Night Football averaged a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 21.6 million viewers for the 2024 season - the show's best viewership since 2015 and up 1% from last season (21.4 million), according to official national live plus same day data released by Nielsen, and digital data from Adobe Analytics. SNF was also integral to NBC Sports in 2024 delivering its most-watched year since 2016.
Season highlights included:
11 games topped 20 million viewers, the most such big-game Sunday Night Football audiences
NBC Sports Digital hit another viewership milestone, delivering a full-season Average Minute Audience above 2 million viewers (2.2 million) for the first time across Peacock, NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports app, and NFL Digital properties - up 38% from the prior record (1.6 million) set last season, and nearly double the AMA in 2022 (1.2 million).
A record 11 simulstreamed games topped the 2 million AMA threshold - more than tripling the prior mark set last season (three).
Peacock's exclusive presentation of the NFL's first-ever game in Brazil on Sept. 6 averaged a Total Audience Delivery of 14.2 million viewers - ranking as the second-most watched live event on Peacock (behind the 2023 AFC Wild Card) and the second-most watched Friday show since the Paris Olympics (behind only Yankees-Dodgers World Series Game 1).
Peacock exclusively streamed the EA SPORTS Madden NFL Cast of the Dec. 21 Houston Texans-Kansas City Chiefs game, which featured a blend of video game elements and live action to present a first-of-its-kind live football experience.
On NBC broadcast stations, Sunday Night Football topped all primetime shows in average viewership and household rating, and for the 16th consecutive season ranked #1 among adults 18-49. In addition, SNF posted 10 of the top 11 primetime shows this fall (based on Nielsen data only, 9/5/24-1/5/25).
For the first time, Kansas City ranked as the top-rated SNF market, succeeding Buffalo, which ranked second this season. New Orleans topped the chart for the prior five years (2018-2022) as well as in 2010, 2011 and 2013. Milwaukee was the top-rated SNF market in 2017 and 2012, while Denver ranked #1 for three consecutive seasons from 2014-16.
The season finale of SNF and the 2024 NFL regular season between the Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions was the most-watched NBC Sunday Night Football season finale since 2012, with an average of 28.5 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, NBC Sports Digital platforms and NFL Digital platforms, based on live plus same day custom fast nationals from Nielsen and digital data from Adobe Analytics.
Vikings-Lions (28.5 million viewers) is third-most watched game in the history of the NBC SNF package (since 2006), trailing only Washington's win over Dallas for the NFC East title in the 2012 season finale (30.3 million viewers, 12/29/12), and Kansas City's 27-20 win over Baltimore in the down-to-the-wire 2024 NFL Kickoff Game (29.2 million viewers, 9/5/24). Vikings-Lions topped viewership for last year's Week 18 SNF game by 24% (23.0 million for Bills-Dolphins matchup for AFC East title) and is expected to the be the most watched primetime show since the NFL Ki
