Kickoff audience a winner for NFL
The NFL and its media partners have gotten an encouraging sign from the ratings for NBC’s telecast of the 2021 season’s kickoff.
Nielsen data show that an average of 24.4 million viewers tuned in for the Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ 31-29 win over the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday. The surprisingly close contest was decided by a field goal in the final seconds.
An additional 1.6 million streamed the telecast on various platforms, bringing the total average audience to 26 million, NBC said.
The figure is 20% above last year’s 21.6 million for the opener between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Houston Texans and the highest for an NFL opener since 2015, when 27.4 million viewers watched the New England Patriots face the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The number is likely generating a sigh of relief at the NFL and the media companies that carry its games. A full slate of games, including the Chargers’ opener against Washington on CBS and the Rams’ match-up with the Chicago Bears on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,” began Sunday.
Nearly every TV event has seen a significant audience decline in the last year as the pandemic accelerated the trend away from traditional TV viewing to streaming.
The latest example is NBC’s prime-time coverage of the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, which was down a staggering 42% from 2016, in part because viewers had so many online options to watch the competition live.
NFL games have been more resilient than other programming. In election years, the competition from presidential campaign coverage usually cuts into NFL viewership; in 2020, the average audience for all games declined by 7% to 15.6 million.
But the NFL’s strength is best reflected in its performance compared with other network prime-time programming. In 2020, the NFL audience was 4.3 times larger than the average prime-time program, up from 3.1 times from 2016 to 2019.
Advertising on NFL telecasts is highly desired as they still have the ability to draw massive live audiences that will sit through commercials.
“They are the biggest driver of network ratings and ultimately advertising dollars,” media analyst Michael Nathanson said in a report on the NFL issued Friday.
Network sports executives have said the demand for ad time for the current season has been robust. NBC said it has pulled in a record $6.5 million for a 30-second spot on Super Bowl LVI, an 18% increase over the price for Super Bowl LV on CBS.
The NFL’s new contract for media rights finalized in March saw a 100% increase to nearly $9 billion a year. It takes effect on ESPN and Amazon Prime in 2022 and CBS, NBC and Fox in 2023.