Blame it on the pandemic, social issues, an overcrowding of sports on television, a matchup which never felt close or something else, but the NFL’s season opener between the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans failed to deliver eyeballs similar to last year’s performance.
Despite having the defending Super Bowl Champions involved in a game which featured two of the top QB’s in the NFL, Patrick Mahomes and DeShaun Watson, ratings for the opening night game on NBC were down 12.3% from last year’s rivalry game between the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears. Altogether the game produced 19.3 million viewers. That was only slightly better than the 2018 season opener between the Eagles and Falcons which started late due to bad weather.
Deadline reported that data added from NBC Sports Digital and NFL Digital platforms boosted the Thursday night game to a Total Audience Delivery of 20.3 million. That though represents an 11% drop from last year’s total number.
Last night’s game peaked between 9:15-9:30 PM ET when 22 million viewers tuned in to watch. Despite the drop in viewership NBC still won the night.
Given the circumstances surrounding this season, and seeing how numbers plummeted a few years ago, only time will tell if the NFL has another ratings problem on its hands or if last night’s decline was a one time occurrence. Either way, expect this to be a national story throughout the season.
I was one of those who didn’t watch. I was watching Canes vs UAB. Normal people are tired of the virtue signaling and BLM organization.