Football's Opening Match Garners 28.3 Million Viewers, Failing to Break Record Due to Weather Interruption

The highly anticipated Ravens-Bills game on Sunday night is expected to draw a massive audience, according to predictions. This comes as no surprise, given the impressive viewership numbers of past NFL games.

In 2017, the SNF debut on NBC featuring a Giants-Cowboys matchup averaged a staggering 24.4 million linear viewers. If the Ravens-Bills game manages to surpass this figure, it would be a significant achievement.

The opening salvo of NBC's 20th season of Sunday Night Football was on pace to average 31.6 million viewers, but a weather delay prevented it from reaching this mark. Despite this, the over/under for NBC's TV and streaming audience for Sunday's NFL game is 25 million viewers.

The audience data against which the NFL's $5.2 billion of ad inventory is transacted is expected to coincide with across-the-board ratings boosts throughout the 2025-26 season. This is partly due to the rollout of Nielsen's new Big Data + Panel currency, which has changed the methodology in which the ratings service counts the house.

The production of the NFL Kickoff games on NBC and Peacock during the 2022 season opener was led by NBC Sports. The NFL Kickoff deliveries for the Cowboys-Eagles opener averaged 28.3 million viewers, and the Eagles' Thursday night win should land among the top 25 most-watched broadcasts of the year.

The weather delay was particularly impactful to the audience in the home team's time zone. The late return to the field due to the weather delay prevented NBC from topping last year's record delivery for the analogous Ravens-Chiefs nail-biter, which averaged 29.2 million viewers.

Interestingly, Buffalo's 41-40 victory over Baltimore is historically significant. Only three teams trailing by 15 points in the final four minutes had previously won. The win-probability chart for the Ravens-Bills game gave Josh Allen & Co. a 1.1% shot at success with 8:37 left in the fourth quarter, when they were down 40-25. This makes the victory even more impressive, as the historic winning percentage in such a scenario is now at 0.17%, up from the previous mark of 0.13%.

As of now, Nielsen isn't expected to have Sunday's NFL numbers ready for perusal until Wednesday afternoon. However, with the anticipation surrounding the game and the impressive viewership numbers of past games, it's clear that Sunday's Ravens-Bills matchup is shaping up to be a must-watch event.

Football's Opening Match Garners 28.3 Million Viewers, Failing to Break Record Due to Weather Interruption