Ravens-Chiefs on NBC and Peacock is Most-Watched NFL Kickoff Game Ever (29.2 Million Viewers - Updated); Rams-Lions on Sunday Night Football Tops ’23 Giants-Cowboys Season Opener
Peacock Registers Its Second Most-Watched Live Event with Friday’s Exclusive Packers-Eagles Game
Colorado-Nebraska is Most-Watched Big Ten Saturday Night Game on NBC and Peacock
Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist Premiered as Most-Watched Title in Peacock History
STAMFORD, Conn. – September 9, 2024 – Four nights of football – an unprecedented three primetime NFL Kickoff Weekend games and Big Ten Saturday Night – and the debut of Peacock’s Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist fueled multiple audience milestones on the platforms of NBCUniversal this past weekend.
Last night, in the season debut of NBC’s Sunday Night Football – primetime’s #1 show for an unprecedented 13 consecutive years – the Detroit Lions defeated the Los Angeles Rams 26-20 in overtime, registering an average of 22.7 million viewers on NBC and Peacock, up 3% from last season’s SNF opener (22.0 million for Cowboys-Giants).
Rams-Lions capped a weekend loaded with viewership milestones:
- Coupled with the record-setting NFL Kickoff Game audience last Thursday (a final 29.2 million viewers for the Kansas City Chiefs’ 27-20 win over the Baltimore Ravens, updated with today’s official Nielsen metrics), NBC Sports averaged 25.9 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, NBC Sports Digital and NFL Digital platforms marking the largest two-game NFL Kickoff Weekend start since 2015, and up 4% from last year (24.9 million). In addition, the 29.2 million viewers for the Kickoff Game is NBC Sports’ second largest-regular season audience since acquiring the SNF package in 2006, trailing only the Washington-Dallas “Win and In” Week 17 game which concluded the 2012 season (30.3 million viewers).
- On Friday, Peacock’s exclusive presentation of the Philadelphia Eagles’ 34-29 victory over the Green Bay Packers in the NFL’s first-ever game in Brazil averaged a Total Audience Delivery of 14.0 million viewers, ranking as the second-most watched live event on Peacock (behind only the record-setting AFC Wild Card game in January) and nearly doubling the Bills-Chargers Peacock exclusive game last December (7.3 million viewers).
- Led by Peacock, the Thursday and Sunday NFL Kickoff Weekend games are NBC Sports’ two most simulstreamed NFL regular-season games ever, with Average Minute Audiences of 4.6 million viewers and 2.8 million viewers, respectively.
- Despite a lopsided 28-0 halftime score, Nebraska’s 28-10 victory over Colorado on Saturday averaged 6.3 million viewers on NBC and Peacock, marking the most-watched Big Ten Saturday Night game since the series debuted last year.
- Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist premiered as the most-watched title in Peacock history and is the #1 original drama through its first weekend. The limited series is executive produced by Will Packer and stars Kevin Hart (who also executive produces), Samuel L. Jackson, Taraji P. Henson, Don Cheadle and Terrence Howard.
- In addition to the massive reach, the NFL on NBC ad environment drives significant, full funnel engagement with +13% greater brand memorability for standard ads, +26 for custom sponsorship elements, and the Kickoff game specifically drove +39% search engagement
Viewership figures are based upon fast custom live + same day data from Nielsen (official Nielsen data for Thursday and Friday games) and Adobe Analytics streaming data for Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday.
TOP METERED MARKETS FOR RAMS-LIONS ON SNF (based on 44 markets available):
| 1. | Detroit | 32.0/69 |
| 2. | Kansas City | 15.7/41 |
| 3. | Minneapolis | 14.2/40 |
| 4. | Las Vegas | 12.9/39 |
| 5. | Milwaukee | 12.6/33 |
| 6. | Norfolk | 12.5/38 |
| 7. | Denver | 12.3/38 |
| 8. | Pittsburgh | 12.0/32 |
| 9. | Cincinnati | 11.4/31 |
| 10. | Dallas | 11.3/36 |
--SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL—
