NFL TV ratings for the 2023 season. Will be updated as the season progresses. Previous NFL TV ratings: last year, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014.

NFL TV ratings, 2023 season

Streaming services ESPN+ and Peacock are not Nielsen-rated and thus games that air exclusively on these platforms will not be included.

Conference championship games

The Lions-49ers NFC Championship was the most-watched conference title game in 12 years, while Chiefs-Ravens delivered the largest AFC Championship audience on record.

Divisional Round games

Chiefs-Bills became the first Divisional Round game on record to top the 50 million viewer mark, as Kansas City’s narrow win averaged 50.39 million on CBS — the largest NFL audience on record outside of the Super Bowl and conference championship games. It was also the highest rated such game in seven years.

In other action, Packers-49ers delivered the largest Saturday television audience on any network in 30 years with 37.5 million on ESPN.

(In the below chart, NBC’s Buccaneers-Lions game is listed as declining from last season. That is on a Nielsen-only basis. Including NBC’s Adobe Analytics streaming audience, viewership for the game surpassed last year.)

Wild Card games

Packers-Cowboys delivered the largest audience of Wild Card weekend with more than 40 million viewers on FOX, the fifth-largest Wild Card audience on record. Two other games topped the 30 million mark, with Rams-Lions at 32.19 million on NBC (36 million including streaming data tracked by Adobe Analytics) and Steelers-Bills at 31.05 million despite a one-day postponement on CBS.

The Dolphins-Chiefs game on Peacock finished with 22.9 million, including 1.35 million viewers on local over-the-air affiliates in the home markets.

Week 18 games

Week 17 games

The NFL national window topped the Week 17 charts as coverage featuring Bengals-Chiefs averaged 26.17 million viewers on CBS — the 17th NFL telecast this season to cross the 25 million viewer mark, nearly double the same point last season (nine). Close behind, the special Saturday night edition of Monday Night Football (Lions-Cowboys) averaged 26.11 million, the third-largest MNF audience since 1997.

Thursday Night Football finished its season with 10.29 million for Jets-Browns, marking the 14th of 15 games this season to increase over last year.

Week 16 games

Cowboys-Dolphins on Christmas Eve topped a packed Week 16 of the NFL season with an average of more than 31 million viewers on FOX, the NFL’s largest Sunday regular season audience since 2007.

The three Christmas Day games were also strong in Week 16, with each up double-digits in viewership from last year. Raiders-Chiefs led the way with 29.48 million viewers across CBS and Nickelodeon, the largest Christmas NFL audience in 34 years. Giants-Eagles followed with 28.76 million on FOX and Ravens-49ers brought up the rear with 27.61 million on ABC.

Rounding out the notables in Week 16, NBC averaged 14.3 million for a rare Saturday afternoon Bengals-Steelers game, while figures were not immediately available for the Bills-Chargers Peacock exclusive.

Week 15 games

The Bills’ rout of the Cowboys topped the NFL Week 15 slate with 26.34 million viewers, clearing the next-best game by nearly ten million. Ratings and viewership increased double-digits from last year to rank as the highest for any NFL window in Week 15 of the season since 2017 (mostly Patriots-Steelers: 26.88M). (Keep the out-of-home caveat in mind.)

FOX also took second-place with an 8.6 and 16.44 million for coverage featuring Chiefs-Patriots in two-thirds of markets — a game that was originally scheduled for Monday Night Football, but flexed back to Sunday in favor of Eagles-Chiefs.

As for the Saturday tripleheader, Steelers-Colts topped the charts with a 4.7 and 9.79 million, up from Ravens-Browns last year (4.4, 8.97M). (Last year’s comparable tripleheader topped out at at 5.4 and 11.06 million for Dolphins-Bills.)

Week 14 games

The NFL national window topped the Week 14 charts as more than 26 million viewers watched coverage featuring Bills-Chiefs in most markets. NBC’s Sunday Night Football ranked second for the week with around 24 million, but that figure rises to 26.5 million including additional streaming viewership tracked by Adobe Analytics.

Week 13 games

The Eagles have emerged as the biggest draw in the NFL this season. Philadelphia’s blowout loss to San Francisco anchored a Week 13 national window on FOX that averaged 27.70 million viewers — the third-largest audience of the season, excluding Thanksgiving. Philadelphia has been featured in each of the five most-watched non-Thanksgiving windows thus far.

NBC’s Sunday Night Football also had a strong performance in Week 13, as the Packers’ upset of the Chiefs delivered 25.4 million viewers (23.57M per Nielsen and 1.86 million per Adobe Analytics) — the network’s largest SNF audience in Week 13 of the season.

As previously noted, Thursday Night Football scored its largest audience in the Amazon era with 15.26 million for Seahawks-Cowboys.

Week 12 games

Commanders-Cowboys delivered one of the largest NFL audiences on record Thanksgiving Day, scoring 41.8 million viewers on CBS — trailing only Giants-Cowboys on Thanksgiving last year (42.1M) as the most-watched regular season game on record. Out-of-home viewing played a major role, accounting for 41% of the audience.

In other action, Packers-Lions delivered the largest audience on record for a Lions Thanksgiving game (33.7M) and 49ers-Seahawks finished the day off with the second-largest primetime Thanksgiving audience on record (24.8M).

The good times continued past Thanksgiving as the CBS national window (mostly Bills-Eagles) scored the highest household rating of the season with a 15.2 and Monday Night Football delivered its top Week 12 audience since 2009.

Shifting to Black Friday, Jets-Dolphins was merely so-so with 9.61 million on Amazon Prime.

Week 11 games

The Eagles-Chiefs Super Bowl rematch delivered the largest Monday Night Football audience in 27 years and the largest NFL audience of the current season.

As for Sunday’s games, the NFL national window posted its smallest audience since Week 1 as just shy of 21 million watched coverage featuring Jets-Bills in most markets. CBS has double-digit declines for both halves of its doubleheader. In other action, a nailbiter between the Vikings and Broncos eked out a year-over-year increase on NBC’s Sunday Night Football and the FOX singleheader scored a double-digit gain.

Week 10 games

Another Dallas rout of the Giants resulted in the least-watched NFL national window since Week 1 as 21.7 million viewers tuned in on FOX. The previous low for a national window was 23.1 million in Week 5. In addition to the multi-week low, viewership also declined a quarter from last year, when FOX aired Cowboys-Packers in most markets (29.17M). Four of five Sunday windows posted year-over-year declines, the lone exception being the CBS singleheader — which increased 12%.

Week 9 games

A down-to-the-wire Cowboys-Eagles game helped FOX to the largest Nielsen-measured audience of the NFL season as more than 27 million tuned into the network’s late doubleheader window — the largest Week 9 audience on any network in nine years.

In other action, Dolphins-Chiefs delivered the largest morning NFL audience in eight years as 9.2 million tuned in for the 6-2 teams’ International Series matchup from Frankfurt, Germany.

Week 8 games

CBS scored the second-largest Nielsen-measured audience of the NFL season as 26.06 million viewers watched coverage featuring Bengals-49ers in most markets. Only the Week 6 national window on FOX (mostly Eagles-Jets) averaged a larger Nielsen-measured audience with 26.09 million. The CBS audience was its highest in Week 8 of the season since resuming NFL coverage in 1998.

In other action, FOX scored the largest singleheader audience of the season as nearly 20 million viewers watched coverage featuring Rams-Cowboys in a plurality of markets, and NBC hit a season-low for a Bears-Chargers dud.

Week 7 games

The NFL national window was easily the top draw of Week 7, as more than 24 million viewers watched CBS coverage featuring Chargers-Chiefs in most markets. Both CBS windows increased over last year’s comparable Week 7 doubleheader on FOX, and NBC’s marquee Dolphins-Eagles game soared over Steelers-Dolphins a year ago. FOX brought up the rear on Sunday as its singleheader was not only the least-watched window of the day, but the only one to decline.

Week 6 games

FOX scored the largest Nielsen-measured audience of the NFL season for the Week 6 national window, featuring Eagles-Jets in most markets. The audience of 26.09 million surpassed the previous high of 25.78 million for coverage featuring Jets-Cowboys in Week 2. Despite the Week 1 injury to Aaron Rodgers, The three most-watched windows of the season (per Nielsen) each involved the New York Jets.

Week 5 games

The 49ers’ rout of the Cowboys was the top NFL telecast of Week 5 with a Nielsen-measured audience of 24.3 million viewers on NBC (26.3M including streaming viewership measured by Adobe Analytics), giving NBC its third win in five weeks.

The NFL national window on CBS, featuring Chiefs-Vikings in most markets, placed second with a slight decline from last year. CBS is nonetheless off to its best five-week start since resuming NFL coverage in 1998.

Week 4 games

Chiefs-Jets was the most-watched NFL telecast of Week 4 with a Nielsen-measured audience of nearly 25 million viewers on NBC (nearly 27 million including streaming viewership measured by Adobe Analytics), the second-largest NFL audience of the season.

With the Cowboys winning in another blowout, the NFL national window declined for a third-straight week.

Week 3 games

As usual, the NFL’s 4:25 PM ET window dominated the ratings charts with more than 24 million viewers on FOX. Most of the country got the Chiefs’ rout of the Bears, while others received the Cowboys’ upset loss to the Cardinals. Ratings and viewership still declined from last year, when most of the country saw Packers-Buccaneers in a matchup of Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady.

Week 2 games

CBS delivered the largest audience of Week 2 with more than 25 million viewers for the back half of its NFL doubleheader (Jets-Cowboys in 90% of markets), still down from last year, when most of the country got Bengals-Cowboys.

Week 1 games

The Lions-Chiefs Kickoff Game dominated week one of the season with nearly 25 million viewers on NBC (27.5 million across TV and streaming). Bills-Jets on Monday night ranked second for the week with 22.64 million viewers on ESPN and ABC. CBS placed third with its national window, which averaged more than 21 million despite airing directly opposite a national window on FOX. All three windows increased double-digits from last year.

The four other Week 1 windows declined double-digits.

Nielsen ratings explainer

A brief explainer of TV ratings, using the Lions-Chiefs NFL Kickoff Game.

Rating: The percentage of television homes tuned to the game in the average minute. 13% of U.S. television homes were tuned to the Lions-Chiefs game in the average minute. Nielsen universe estimates for the 2023-24 TV season were not immediately available, but Nielsen estimated that there were 123.8 million TV homes in the 2022-23 season.

Viewers: The number of viewers aged 2+ viewing the game in the average minute. The Lions-Chiefs game averaged 24.75 million viewers per minute. (That does not mean 24.75 million viewers total watched the game. Nielsen uses a separate total viewing figure to estimate how many viewers watched at least six minutes of any given telecast. Typically, that figure is significantly higher than the average viewership listed here.)

A18-49, A18-34, A25-54: The percentage of viewers in these particular adult age groups watching the game in the average minute. The Lions-Chiefs game averaged 5.7% of adults 18-34, 7.1% of adults 18-49 and 8.8% of adults 25-54 per minute. These demographics, particularly adults 18-34 and 18-49 are of particular importance to advertisers.

Nielsen uses sampling data to estimate television audiences, which means your specific decision to watch or not watch a game does not have any direct impact on the numbers — unless you have been chosen by Nielsen to be part of its sample and agreed to do so.

Does viewership include streaming?

All Nielsen figures include streaming viewership through “virtual MVPDs” (ex. YouTube TV, Hulu with live TV, Sling, Fubo TV, AT&T TV Now) on television, computer and mobile devices, though those figures are typically added to the total a few days the initial final nationals are published (and as such may not always be included in the numbers you see on this page). For programs on ESPN and ESPN2, streaming through the ESPN app and ESPN.com is also included.

Does viewership include DVR?

Yes, all Nielsen figures cited here include same-day DVR. Nielsen also releases viewership figures that include three, seven and even 35 days of DVR viewing, but those are not shown here as they are not particularly relevant for sporting events.

Does viewership include bars and restaurants?

As of August 31, 2020, all Nielsen figures include out-of-home viewing. Again, Nielsen uses sampling data to calculate the audience, meaning that your viewing of a sporting event outside of your home does not count unless you are in a “Nielsen family.”