The NFL is returning to normal in all the right ways on television. The league reported this week that its games are averaging 17.3 million viewers on streaming and TV. That mark represents its highest average viewership through four weeks since the 2015 season.
The minutiae in the numbers make the bounce back from the pandemic-shifted 2020 season even more impressive. NFL viewership is up 17% compared to last year. The amount of People using TVs has decreased by 8%, while the NFL’s share of TVs watching its games is up 26% compared to 2020.
Of the 21 most-watched telecasts in the country this year, every single one has been an NFL game. Award shows and a sprinkling of other events used to scatter on the list alongside the NFL matchups, but not anymore.
It all came to a head in Massachusetts on Sunday night as the league capped off their stellar month. Tom Brady and the Buccaneers 19-17 victory over Bill Belichick and the Patriots was the biggest hit of the season so far.
The game’s final viewing numbers checked in at 28 million people with streaming and TV combined. That represented the largest TV audience since Super Bowl LV this past February. The game outrated five of the six wild-card games and two divisional round games from this past postseason.
Tom Brady is no stranger to this many eyeballs watching him. The total paled when compared to the record viewership of an NFL game, which a Giants-49ers Monday Night Football game set with 41.3 million viewers on Dec. 3, 1990. Yet, Brady teams hold the top three spots in terms of viewership for Sunday-only games.
Brady sells, and NBC was buying the storylines all night long before kick-off. The anticipation for Brady v. Belichick helped Football Night In America post the second-highest rating in its history (12 million viewers).
The death of football was always an overreaction, and the numbers coming out of this NFL bear that out.