A pretty disappointing slate of games resulted in pretty disappointing viewership for the NFL in Week 7.
Starting on Thursday, Amazon drew a season-low 7.824 million viewers for Saints-Cardinals on Thursday Night Football. That’s down from last week (Commanders-Texans, 8.785 million) and last year (Broncos-Browns, 12.99 million on Fox and NFL Network).
CBS had the singleheader on Sunday, and averaged 14.556 million for a five-game window (led by Lions-Cowboys). That is down from both last week (Jets-Packers, Bucs-Steelers, etc, 16.365 million on Fox) and last year (Washington-Packers, 15.74 million on Fox).
Fox had the Sunday doubleheader. In the early slot, 13.359 watched a four-game window headlined by Packers-Commanders. That’s down from last week (Ravens-Giants, etc, 13.454 million on CBS) and last year (Chiefs-Titans, etc, 15.15 million on CBS). In the late slot, 22.285 million watched a two-game window with most of the country getting 49ers-Chiefs. That’s down from last week (Bills-Chiefs, 25.407 million on CBS) and up from last year (Bears-Bucs, 17.75 million on CBS).
Sunday Night Football averaged 15.534 million on NBC for Steelers-Dolphins. That’s down from both last week (Cowboys-Eagles, 20.793 million) and last year (49ers-Colts, 16.11 million).
Monday Night Football averaged 11.827 million across both ESPN and ESPN2 for Bears-Patriots. That’s down from both last week (Broncos-Chargers, 12.050 million on ESPN alone) and last year (Saints-Seahawks, 12.80 million on both networks).
In Week 8, I imagine we’ll see week to week jumps for both Thursday Night Football and Sunday Night Football due to better matchups (Ravens-Bucs in the former, Packers-Bills in the latter) and no MLB playoff competition for either game (each package went head to head with the ALCS on TBS last week). Additionally, ESPN+ has an exclusive morning game from London, so don’t be surprised if there is no publicly available viewership data released for that one.
[Data via ShowBuzz Daily, Sports Media Watch]
