The NFL does so well that even its games that don’t mean anything still draw plenty of viewers. Even with major events like the Olympics going on.
Via Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal, the total TV and digital audience for the 2023 preseason averaged 1.93 million viewers, up slightly from last year’s 1.91 million average. This year, the Hall of Fame game and Week 1 of the preseason competed with the Olympics.
The best number came from NBC’s Week 3 prime-time game between the Patriots and Commanders, at 5.3 million viewers. The storm-shortened Hall of Fame game on ABC and ESPN had 4.93 million viewers; it was the last-watched Hall of Fame game on broadcast TV since Vikings vs. Seahawks in 1997.
Week 1 dropped by 14 percent compared to last year, given the Olympics. Week 2 and 3 made up for the difference, plus a little more.
The next challenge when it comes to ratings will be the election. Fortunately for the NFL, no debates are scheduled to conflict with NFL prime-time games.
Maybe the election won’t matter. Maybe enough people are sick of politics that they’ll flock to one thing we can all agree on — football is awesome.