The Secret Truth Behind NFL TV Broadcast Ratings

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Friends,

For those that aren’t aware, professional sports across the world have taken center stage in the fight against racial injustice.

The response has been divisive, to say the least.

Some fans have taken the position that players & leagues should leave these topics at home, and have sworn to stop watching live competition all together. Other fans believe that sports have the right and obligation to use their platform to advance social issues, continuing to watch and promote in the absence of others.

Regardless - I’m not here to tell you to do one or the other, just want to simply sort through the details to see if people have actually stopped watching.

So let’s play a game - when it comes to television ratings for the opening night of NFL football, how do you think the league & NBC performed?

It depends where you looked.

Here are two headlines attempting to explain the ratings from last Thursday’s Chiefs-Texans game.

Headline #1

or

Headline #2

The problem?

They’re both technically correct. Let’s dig in…

(📸: Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

When it comes to storytelling or the formation of a persuasive argument, I have always believed that there should be a statistical foundation of facts.

So let’s take a look - here are the facts regarding NFL ratings for the Chiefs-Texans game on Thursday night:

• In total (broadcast + digital), NBC averaged 20.3 million viewers.

• The TV broadcast averaged 19.3 million viewers on NBC.

• Through a combination of NBC digital properties, there was an average of 970,000 viewers.

• In simple terms, the combination of 19.3 million TV Broadcast viewers and 970,000 digital viewers, gets us to the total of 20.3 million total viewers.

Ok cool, how about some context?

• Ratings were down 11% from 2019, when the Packers-Bears opener averaged 22.2 million viewers.

• Ratings were up 7% from 2018, when the Falcons-Eagles averaged 19.0 million viewers.

• TNF was the most-watched sporting event since the Super Bowl in February.

• TNF was only the second show, regardless of category, since the Super Bowl with over 20 million viewers (Academy Awards, 23.6 million on Feb. 9).

• NBC sold all its ad inventory for Thursday night’s game, “with revenue up double digits vs. 2019 and the average cost per 30-second spot near $900,000.”

• NBC faced unprecedented sports competition with the NBA/NHL playoffs and US Open being conducted at the same time, potentially taking away millions of viewers.

So what does it all mean?

It can all be summarized by one point - the insane popularity of football in the United States.

Perhaps there is a better argument when it comes to the NBA or NHL, but when looking at football, it really doesn’t matter. Football is by far the most popular sport in US, and even if regular season ratings were to dip by an unfathomable 20-25% (they won’t), it would still be head and shoulders above any sport when it comes to viewership.

For context, the poll below shows that football is almost 3.5x more popular than the second ranked sport, basketball, when it comes to the viewing preference of the average person in the United States.

Still don’t believe me?

Let’s see what history has to say.

Below is a list of the “most watched television broadcasts in the history of the United States based on average viewership and household ratings measurement conducted by Nielsen.”

The NFL’s Super Bowl holds 29 out of the top 30 spots all-time (Source).

On top of the examples above, keep in mind that the Chiefs-Texans “double digit down ratings” NFL game still dominated the most popular NBA playoff game this year.

For example, Game 2 between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Houston Rockets was the most watched NBA playoff game this year, viewed by a total of 5.4M people, or about 25% of the viewers that tuned into the Chiefs-Texans game.

So continue to watch NFL games, or don’t, but the point is that it doesn’t matter. As long as the advertisement dollars are still coming in, which they are in record amounts, the NFL won’t take the threat of declining viewership seriously.

Maybe we’ll eventually get to that point, but we aren’t even close yet.

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Extra Credit

Did you miss some of the NFL action yesterday? Don’t worry, I have you covered.

Below are the top plays from the first Sunday of NFL football in 2020.

Tonight’s schedule:

• Pittsburgh Steelers at New York Giants - 7:15pm ET (ESPN)

• Tennessee Titans at Denver Broncos - 10:10pm ET (ESPN)

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