In 2020 the audience fell for regular NFL season games

After two years of ranking growth, by 2020 the audience for regular 17-week NFL games went down across all broadcast and cable networks. According to Nielsen, without reorganized games due to the pandemic, the 2020 regular season averaged 15.4 million viewers (live + same day), a 7% decline from the previous regular season. It was the lowest average audience since 2017. When all television games are included the average audience dropped to 14.9 million viewers. Despite the fall, NFL rankings remain strong in the ongoing video landscape. Audience delivery is more than three times the average viewership of prime-time shows on broadcast TV at the end of 2020.

Average audience of regular season NFL games

2020 15.4 million

2019 16.5 million

2018 15.8 million

2017 15.0 million

2016 16.5 million

2015 18.7 million

2014 17.6 million

For the 2020 season there were 18 NFL telecasts that delivered an average audience of over 20 million viewers, compared to 29 games in 2019. The 18 games can be broken down into holidays (three games), evenings Sunday (14 games) and the Beginners Class on NBC. Again, the highest game of the season was a regular on Thanksgiving Day (Washington at Dallas) which brought Fox an average of 30.3 million viewers. Overall, Fox had recorded ten of the top games, followed by six on CBS and one each on NBC and Fox / NFL Network (on Christmas Day).

The only other regular season game with an average of over 25 million viewers was the late (national) evening game on Fox in the first week. The game featured forty-two quarters of something, the first time of Tom Brady, a six-time Super Bowl champion with Tampa Bay and Drew Brees of New Orleans. The game had 25.9 million viewers.

With an average audience of 16.8 million viewers, NBC Sunday Night Football finished its 15th^th season as the highest television prime-time program for the tenth consecutive season. Nonetheless, the audience declined from 20.5 million in 2019. Moreover, Sunday Night Football audience was the smallest to watch since 2008. NBC announced when digital viewing is introduced, the total audience for Sunday Night games in 2020 grew to 17.4 million. Sunday night’s game was the highest rated on NBC Week 11 between Kansas City’s Super Bowl champions and Las Vegas division rivals.

The average Monday Night Football audience on ESPN during the season was 11.8 million viewers, a slight decrease from last season’s average audience of 12.1 million viewers. Launched in 1970, the rankings for Monday Night Football came to a strong end with the last six games reporting an increase in spectators compared to a similar week in 2019. A reason for the increase in rates was the co-broadcasting of several games on ABC. The high-profile game was on Week 2 New Orleans against Las Vegas with an average of 15.6 million viewers. It was the first home game for the newly moved Las Vegas (from Oakland) franchise. The game was also part of ESPN’s “Megacast” which included ABC, ESPN 2 and ESPN Deportes. The high-profile match aired exclusively on ESPN next week featuring the last two NFL MVPs, quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes of Kansas City and Lamar Jackson of Baltimore. That game had an average of 14.7 million viewers.

For the season, Fox was once again a high-profile Sunday afternoon network with an average audience of 18.1 million viewers. The late afternoon games were dubbed the “Game of the Week America” by an average of 23.2 million viewers in 2020. It marks the twelfth anniversary just that the evening national game is the highest overall television program. Nevertheless, the audience for NFL games on Fox fell 6% compared to 2019.

In 2020 CBS games on Sunday afternoon averaged 16.5 million viewers, a year-over-year decline of 4% and the lowest season since 2017. Coverage of Thursday Night football matches on Fox and additional NFL Network on several streaming platforms (i.e., Amazon Prime Video), averaging 14.1 million viewers for the season, a decline of 6% from 2019.

During Week 16 of the season (Saturday, December 26th), Amazon Prime Video and Twitch streamed a live NFL tournament between Arizona and San Francisco. The game was also available on local over-the-air stations KNTV (NBC station) in San Francisco and KSAZ (Fox station) in Phoenix as well as Verizon. The streaming video component accounted for an average minute audience of 4.8 million viewers and rose to 5.9 million when the two broadcast stations were introduced. The NFL reported that 11.8 million viewers had seen some of the game streaming on Amazon and Twitch.

With the pandemic the 2020 NFL season was quite different from the previous 100 seasons. First, there were no preseason games. Also, with a limited number of viewers, Front office sports reporting attendance to NFL games exceeded 1 million, compared to more than 17 million in 2019. This was the smallest NFL season attended since 1938 (1.1 million) when ten teams at the league. Also, initially, the NFL had a regular season game played on every day of the week, with games rescheduled throughout the season as players were positive. for COVID-19.

Of the 256 regular season games, 18 were transferred at least once due to the pandemic. This affected rankings. For example, the Baltimore games against Pittsburgh scheduled for Thanksgiving night on NBC were moved three times and finally played the next Wednesday afternoon (December 2). Last year, the Thanksgiving night game (Atlanta v. New Orleans) had an average of 20.8 million viewers, this year the reorganized game averaged 10.8 million. average

Similar to the 2016 season, the upcoming selection affected the NFL rankings for games early in the season. For example, during week 4 (October 1-October 5, 2020) of the NFL season, rates went down 26% compared to the same week in 2019. Moreover, in week 5, which into the rescheduled Tuesday night game (Tennessee v. Tennessee) Buffalo), year-on-year rankings were 14% lower (October 8-October 13, 2020). The Hollywood Reporter notes, after the election, the rankings for four of the six consistently listed NFL windows gave higher ratings after the election.

Despite a drop in rankings, the NFL is well positioned to enter the next round of rights tax negotiations with its TV partners with conventional contracts coming to an end. soon. Sportico reports in calendar year 2020, NFL games accounted for 33 of the top 50 telecasts. In addition, 13 games at this postseason NFL (up from 11) will include the Super Bowl. Postseason games are ranked higher by a large majority and even average early playoff games with over 30 million viewers. Moreover, in 2021 the NFL announced that they would extend the regular season to 17 games (from 16).