Over the last three decades, Fox NFL Sunday has been the gold standard that most football fans turn to during the NFL season. And that fact did not change this season.
Leading into the 2024-25 season, Fox NFL Sunday had been the most-watched NFL pregame show for 30 consecutive seasons.
This streak extended this year to 31 straight seasons, outpacing The NFL Today on CBS and Sunday NFL Countdown on ESPN with an average of 4.4 million viewers each week according to a press release from Fox on the matter.
With an average of 4,415,000 viewers this year, FOX NFL SUNDAY celebrates 31 consecutive seasons as the most-watched NFL pregame show! pic.twitter.com/hR2RPoHOKB
— FOX Sports PR (@FOXSportsPR) January 7, 2025
In celebration of the continued success of the show, Fox also released a video from the very beginning of Fox NFL Sunday to show just how far it has come.
Celebrating 31 years of @NFLonFOX being the #1 NFL pregame show 🙌
Flashback to when it all began 🏈 pic.twitter.com/11NTwJrLvG
— FOX Sports (@FOXSports) January 8, 2025
In the modern landscape of sports media where there are countless options outside of traditional media to consume pregame content, it’s impressive to see that Fox NFL Sunday hasn’t skipped a beat in terms of viewership. This year’s viewership actually marks a slight improvement over the 2023-24 NFL season when the show averaged 4,392,000 viewers.
Fox remaining on top for so long suggests how much NFL fans mat value familiarity when it comes who they choose to watch.
Unlike The NFL Today which saw some significant turnover this past season when both Boomer Esiason and Phil Simms departed from the show and Matt Ryan joined it, Fox NFL Sunday has largely maintained their core cast since the show’s inception in 1994.
Instead of replacing the likes of Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, and Jimmy Johnson with younger talent like CBS did with Simms and Esiason, Fox has decided to add to them with fresh faces like Rob Gronkowski.
Considering the lengthy streak of remaining at the top of the NFL pregame show game, it sure seems like Fox won’t mess with their current strategy anytime soon as long as their mainstays want to continue in their roles on the show.
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.