NFL Ratings Increase: NFL finishes yet another regular season of its ratings dominance, unchallenged at the top according to every metric.
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We all can’t get enough football 🤯 pic.twitter.com/JSBC7dJ4mk
— B/R Gridiron (@brgridiron) January 12, 2022
In all seriousness, this could be as simple as the NFL no longer competing with a presidential campaign in 2021 like they did in 2020. But that doesn’t change the fact that some of the numbers that have surfaced about NFL broadcasts are absurd. NFL ratings jumped 10 percent during the 2021 regular season and audiences consumed a whopping 370 BILLION minutes of football.
With an average draw of 18.2 million linear TV viewers per game, @SNFonNBC effectively sucked all the air out of primetime.
All told, live sports accounted for 94 of the year’s 100 largest TV audiences
Full list: https://t.co/9odVatZaLv pic.twitter.com/M6pSvd9Iq6
— Sportico (@Sportico) January 7, 2022
NFL Ratings: Reasons for NFL’s continued dominance as America’s sport
It was rather expected that the audience would increase after the 2020 season having been finished in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, with empty stadiums presenting a strange viewing dynamic. Another big factor is probably the fact that with time more Americans got vaccinated and that pumped up the out-of-home viewing numbers.
Not only that, but the viewership was the highest since 2015. The Dallas Cowboys were involved in five of the 10mmost viewed games. This included a week 12 thanksgiving matchup against the Las Vegas Raiders, which averaged 40.8 million viewers on CBS. That would make it easily the most watched regular season game on any network in 31 years.
By the numbers
- The NFL’s 272 regular-season games in 2021 averaged 17.1 million viewers. That is a 10 percent increase over 2020
- The NFL reportedly accounted for 75 of the top 100 US broadcasts for all of 2021
- ‘Sunday Night Football’ is on pace to become prime time’s most-watched show for the 11th consecutive season at 19.3 million.
- The nine ‘Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli’ alternate broadcasts averaged 1.6 million. The highest being 1.96 million for the New York Giants-Kansas City game on Week 8.
- With Peacock, Paramount+ and ESPN+ expanding offerings, there were 370 billion total minutes streamed. An 18 percent jump from 2020 and the second-highest total on record behind only 2015.
There have been no shortage of theories on the league’s supposed declining popularity over the last five years. Including objections to player protests during ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’. Despite that and despite multiple player related controversies challenging the rules of player empowerment, the NFL continues its dominance as America’s Sport.
