NFL Week 1 Ratings Set Historic Highs, Suggesting League Still Growing In Popularity

The NFL television ratings juggernaut continues to dominate and even expand its lead in drawing audiences to the league's games.

Except for one minor blip that could be argued to be a setback on a YouTube telecast, the NFL set records and reached historical highs in ratings across the board for its Week 1 games.

NBC Week 1 Average Highest In A Decade

The Cowboys versus Eagles NFL Kickoff Game Thursday on NBC drew a massive audience, which came in at 28.3 million viewers. That marked the second-highest NFL draw behind the 29.2 million who watched the Chiefs and Ravens last year.

Well, the cynics will say, the NFL lost nearly a million viewers year over year. The facts counter that this season's game suffered a 65-minute delay that pushed the broadcast into the early Friday morning hours.

And that definitely hurt viewership.  

NBC followed that up with an actual Sunday Night Football game featuring the Buffalo Bills versus the Baltimore Ravens and that was also a ratings monster, averaging 24.7 million viewers. 

Those numbers represent the highest Week 1 average for SNF in three years.

So, overall, NBC averaged 26.5 million viewers for its Week 1 games, the highest since 2015.

INGLEWOOD, CA - SEPTEMBER 07: NFL on CBS banner during the NFL game between the Houston Texans and the Los Angeles Rams on September 07, 2025, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA. (Photo by Jevone Moore/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

CBS Sets Week 1 Records

We head over to CBS, where it is trumpeting that NFL on CBS delivered "record-setting Week 1 viewership across platforms."

What the heck does that mean?

The network's national game of Lions at Packers, played Sunday at 4:25, was the most-watched Week 1 game on CBS since 1998 when the network required NFL rights after a four-year absence. The Lions and Packers drew 23.891 million viewers in the late slot on Sunday.

The network also had its second-most-watched regional game since 1998 on Sunday. The Jets hosting the Steelers was not broadcast to the entire country but still delivered 17.051 million viewers.

And for you traditionalists, close your eyes now:

Because Paramount+ recorded its most-streamed NFL Week 1 ever.

The Lions versus Packers is now the streaming service's No. 1 most-watched Week 1 game of all time. And the Jets versus the Steelers now comes in as the No. 2 most-watched Week 1 game of all time.

Sign with logos for Google and the Google owned video streaming service YouTube at the Googleplex, the Silicon Valley headquarters of search engine and technology company Google Inc in Mountain View, California, April 14, 2018. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)

YouTube Ratings Something Of Disappointment

About the only setback streaming suffered in Week 1 – if one can consider a huge audience a setback – was that YouTube's audience for the Friday night game between the Chargers and Chiefs drew only 17.3  million worldwide.

The viewership was 16.2 million in the United States.

And while that represents an uptick in domestic viewership from the 14.2 million who watched last year's Brazil game on Peacock, it represents something of a disappointment because Peacock is a subscription-based service while the YouTube game was available for free.

So how did the NFL do on the FOX mothership? Great.

FOX NFL didn't have a doubleheader in Week 1. (It gets the doubleheader in Week 2 which will feature the Chiefs hosting the Eagles in a Super Bowl rematch).

Giants Vs. Commanders Rocked For FOX

Anyway, the Giants visiting the Commanders was on FOX in the early window on Sunday and it drew 17.9 million viewers. Is that good?

Well, it comes in as the second-most watched Week 1 game on FOX since 2015.

Finally, the full ratings for Monday Night Football's Vikings game at the Bears on ABC and ESPN aren't fully out yet but overnights suggest a combined audience of 21 million across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2. That would be higher than last year's 20.5 million, which was the second-most watched the 49ers and the Jets.

So what does this all mean? Well, it means the NFL is still the country's favorite league and, by some metrics, that popularity is growing.

And it's not just about football being a great game, because the NFL consistently rates higher than college games and the last couple of weeks have continued to prove that.

The Steelers versus Jets regional game, for example, outdrew national game broadcasts of Ohio State versus Texas (16.6 million), Miami versus Notre Dame (10.8 million), Florida State versus Alabama (10.7 million) and LSU versus Clemson (10.4 million).

Yes, the NFL still wears the ratings crown.