Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold Syndication: The Post-Crescent
By Drew Lerner on

A Christmas Day doubleheader and a pair of tight Sunday finishes helped the NFL secure large audiences in the penultimate week of the regular season.

NFL Media revealed on Tuesday, after some updated accounting, that Netflix’s U.S. audience for its Christmas Day doubleheader averaged 26.5 million viewers last Wednesday. That is up over 2 million viewers from the league’s initial release cited an average audience of 24.3 million viewers for the two games. The league claims a global audience of over 30 million viewers tuned in for the games across 218 countries and territories.

The good times kept rolling for the league after a ho-hum closer to the Thursday Night Football season. Sunday’s NFL slate put up some big numbers on Fox and NBC.

America’s Game of the Week on Fox between the Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings secured the most-watched event of the week on any network, per Fox Sports PR. The Vikings’ narrow victory averaged 26.4 million viewers on Fox, up 1% versus last year’s comparable Cincinnati Bengals-Kansas City Chiefs game on CBS (26.17 million viewers).

Turning to NBC’s Sunday Night Football which featured a thrilling overtime game between the Atlanta Falcons and Washington Commanders, the network secured its most-watched Week 17 telecast since 2019 (when the NFL still played a 16-game schedule). According to NBC PR, the Commanders’ win drew 19.7 million viewers between television and streaming. That is up 9% versus last year’s Packers-Vikings game on SNF, which averaged 18.14 million viewers (though that figure does not include the additional Adobe Analytics figures NBC uses in its press releases).

Viewership for Saturday’s tripleheader on NFL Network was not immediately available, nor was ESPN’s Monday Night Football audience.

Overall, as expected, the NFL seems to be trending up as the season draws to a close. With much of the playoff picture already set headed into Week 18, any year-over-year increases would be impressive for the league next week.

There are certainly still some meaningful games on the schedule, however. Vikings-Lions on Sunday Night Football will determine the No. 1 seed in the NFC. Saturday’s AFC North doubleheader on ESPN/ABC has division title implications. And the Buccaneers and Falcons are still fighting for NFC South supremacy.

It might not be exactly what the NFL hoped for, but that’s champagne problems for the league which dominates television viewership by just about every metric possible.

[Fox Sports PR, NBC Sports PR]

About Drew Lerner

Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.

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