Through four weeks of the 2024-25 NFL season, we’ve seen a number of networks reach record highs in terms of viewership. And subsequently, the entire league across all networks is experiencing the best ratings that they have seen in nearly a decade through the first month of the season.
Despite the fact that Week 4 NFL ratings were largely a mixed bag across the board, the NFL has seen its highest viewership numbers since 2015.
Outside of the Week 1 Peacock-exclusive game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Green Bay Packers, which averaged 14.2 million viewers, NFL games through Week 4 have averaged 17.9 million viewers across all networks.
This growth in viewership is a four-percent year-over-year growth from last year, which had similarly had the highest viewership through four weeks since 2015 at the time.
The big winners in terms of teams thus far this season from a viewership perspective have been the usual suspects, the Dallas Cowboys and the Kansas City Chiefs.
Kansas City makes up four of the five highest-viewed games of the season thus far, highlighted by their season-opening victory against the Baltimore Ravens on NBC, which averaged 28.9 million viewers, the highest ever for an NFL Kickoff game.
Meanwhile, the Cowboys took part in the third-highest viewed game of the season in a Week 3 loss to the Ravens on Fox, which brought in an average of 27.3 million viewers. They also notably helped Amazon Prime break their record for the highest viewership on a Thursday Night Football broadcast in their Week 4 win over the New York Giants.
The NFL has largely been on the rise in terms of viewership for years now across most networks. And as long as this pace continues, it sure seems like another season of year-over-year viewership growth is very much in the cards for the NFL.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.