As the NFL gears up for the playoffs, the league and its network partners are poised to build on what was already a powerhouse season on the ratings and revenue front. All the elements that go into a cash cow of a postseason are in place, as the field is crowded with teams that put up huge Nielsen deliveries in their multiple national TV windows, a roster that includes the likes of the Dallas Cowboys, Philadelphia Eagles, Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills.
All but three of Dallas’ 17 regular-season games aired in one of the coast-to-coast windows, making Jerry Jones’ charges the most inescapable team on the dial. In exchange for all the relentless exposure, the Cowboys put up their usual nosebleed numbers, averaging more than 25 million viewers per appearance. By way of comparison, the average broadcast series in 2023-24 is drawing 3.08 million viewers per episode. (For what it’s worth, the average primetime delivery is down 19% versus the year-ago period, as the networks have yet to recover from the double whammy of Hollywood’s script-freezing work stoppages.)
Tucking in beneath Dallas (see chart below) are its NFC East rivals in Philly, who averaged 23.7 million viewers in 12 national windows. Take Washington out of the mix—with only three big TV dates to its name, including the massive Thanksgiving Day slot on CBS, the Commanders are a statistical outlier—and each of the NFL’s eight highest-rated teams has punched its ticket to the playoffs. Together, those top draws accounted for no fewer than 56 national TV outings, which if nothing else suggests that Howard Katz and the rest of the league’s scheduling crew made all the right moves when they were mapping out the 272-game slate back in the spring.
As for the two biggest national draws in the AFC, the Bills and Chiefs are also the top-rated teams on the local level, as both franchises enjoy an overwhelming dominance in their respective media markets. Per Nielsen, 85% of TV households in Buffalo and Kansas City tune in to the hometown team whenever they’re playing.
Further evidence that the NFL schedule lived up to the preseason hype: Only one game was flexed out of primetime. The league swapped out the Dec. 18 Chiefs-Patriots game for a more compelling Eagles-Seahawks matchup, a move notable for being the first time a scheduled Monday Night Football telecast was made subject to a revision.
Aside from laying claim to 93 of the 100 most-watched broadcasts of 2023, the NFL also managed to grow its overall deliveries despite the ongoing erosion of the American TV habit. Per Nielsen, the league’s national and regional windows averaged 17.9 million viewers across the various TV and digital platforms, good for a 7% boost versus the year-ago average and marking the NFL’s best turnout since 2015. And while the season-to-season lift was made possible in part by ABC’s beefed-up slate of MNF simulcasts, it’s worth noting that the league’s gains were made during a time in which total U.S. TV usage is down nearly 9%.
According to media buyer estimates, the NFL’s TV partners this season generated a record $4.5 billion in total in-game ad revenue, as befits the medium’s last remaining reach vehicle. While that figure does not include allowances for make-goods, underdeliveries weren’t much of an issue in 2023, as the NFL ratings in many instances outstripped their performance guarantees. As the league’s TV deliveries continued to climb, scatter pricing rose accordingly, with many of these last-minute investments commanding over $1 million per unit in the top national windows.
All told, the first year of the NFL’s new 11-year, $110 billion+ rights deal was a staggering success for pretty much everyone with skin in the game, although CBS will perhaps be forgiven if it’s among the loudest to celebrate. This season, the Tiffany Network snapped Fox’s 14-year streak as the purveyor of TV’s most-watched program, averaging 24.6 million in its national Sunday afternoon window. That was good enough to beat out Fox by the merest layer of dental skin, as CBS’ 4:25 p.m. ET showcase outdrew “America’s Game of the Week” by just 15,000 viewers.
CBS’ national and regional NFL broadcasts averaged 19.3 million viewers, up 5% versus last season, and the biggest soup-to-nuts deliveries since the network was reunited with the Shield back in 1998. (The addition of out-of-home ratings to the Nielsen sample in 2020 certainly helped inflate CBS’ in-season numbers, but the same can be said for every other NFL broadcaster.) Fox’s national NFL deliveries were up 2% versus the 2022 campaign, and the network delivered five of the season’s top 10 biggest audiences.
Also putting up huge numbers was Disney’s MNF package, which averaged 17.4 million viewers across 22 games, good for a 30% year-to-year lift. Thanks to the expanded reach that ABC brought to the table, the Monday night showcase enjoyed its highest ratings since 2000. To the delight of advertisers, MNF’s core 18-49 and 25-54 demos both improved 20% under the beefed-up distribution scheme.
Elsewhere on the dial, NBC grew its Sunday Night Football audience by 8%, as the network and its various digital platforms averaged 21.4 million viewers per game. SNF has all but wrapped up its 13th straight win as TV’s top primetime destination, and NBC heads into a busy playoff race with its highest NFL ratings in eight seasons. While two of NBC’s playoff games will air on the flagship network, the primetime Dolphins-Chiefs showdown on Jan. 13 will be available exclusively on Peacock, Comcast’s subscription streaming service. In advance of the NFL’s inaugural streaming-only playoff, Peacock on Dec. 23 carried a Bills-Chargers game that was seen by 7.33 million viewers, a tally which included some 1.12 million TV impressions in the two local markets.
Lastly, Thursday Night Football deliveries were up 24% in year two of Amazon Prime Video’s $11 billion NFL deal, as the package scared up about 2.3 million more fans per week than in 2022. While TNF continued to enjoy unparalleled growth in the 18-34 demo, Amazon’s overall viewership gains were also helped along by an influx of older fans who sat out the streamer’s inaugural campaign. TNF once again delivered the NFL’s youngest enthusiasts, reaching an audience with a median age of 48.5 years, which is nearly seven years younger than the league’s linear-TV base (55.4 years).
Of the six Wild Card games set to air this weekend, the one that should prove to be the biggest ratings draw is Sunday’s 4:30 p.m. ET outing. Fox’s Packers-Cowboys matchup features two of the NFL’s most storied—and highest-rated—franchises, and as a bonus, there’s the through-line of Mike McCarthy looking for revenge against his former employers. When these two teams last met in a playoff game (Divisional Round, 2017), Aaron Rodgers led Green Bay to a 34-31 win over Dallas, a leave-it-all-on-the-table effort seen by 48.5 million viewers.
