Boston football fans were glued to their TVs yesterday. The NFL was smart to stagger the start times for the Patriots and the Buccaneers, because a good chunk of Beantown watched them both.
Michael Mulvihill, FOX’s Executive VP of Strategy, tweeted that both games pulled better than a 22 rating locally. The number for Tampa and New Orleans was especially noteworthy considering no local team was involved.
The intrigue surrounding both games is obvious. The Patriots are the home team. They were breaking in a new quarterback, and thus starting a whole new era. The team’s previous quarterback just happens to be Tom Brady, one of the greatest to ever play the position, and he left Boston for Tampa this past offseason.
While there are plenty of Bostonians that will keep an eye on former Patriots Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski down in Tampa this season, it is unlikely the Buccaneers will every draw that kind of TV audience in Boston again. A lot of the intrigue likely had to do with seeing Brady and Gronk in uniforms that weren’t the Patriots’ for the very first time.
Nationally, the Buccaneers and Saints were a big winner for FOX too. It was the highest rated game in the network’s America’s Game of the Week package since 2016. It pulled a 16.2 rating nationally, making the Saints’ victory the highest rated telecast of any kind since Super Bowl LIV.
Funny, because if you listen to Conservative media, Sunday was a ratings failure. Of course they came to that conclusion on Friday.