Yet another NFL broadcast partner is posting record highs, this time it’s NBC posting its best viewership numbers since 2015. Its Sunday Night Football block is also trending toward being the most-watched primetime program for the 13th straight year.
Sunday Night Football averaged a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 21.4 million viewers for the 2023 season – the show’s best viewership since 2015 and up 8 percent from last season (19.9 million), according to Nielsen and Adobe Analytics.
Six SNF games topped 25 million viewers, matching 2013 for the most since NBC took over Sunday nights in 2006. The six games are listed below, along with the date and average viewers across NBC, Peacock, NBC Sports Digital and NFL Digital.
| Game, Date | Avg. Viewers |
| Detroit Lions-Kansas City Chiefs, 9/7 | 27.5 million |
| Kansas City Chiefs-New York Jets, 10/1 | 26.7 million |
| Philadelphia Eagles-Dallas Cowboys, 12/10 | 26.5 million |
| San Francisco 49ers-Seattle Seahawks, 11/23 | 26.4 million |
| Dallas Cowboys-San Francisco 49ers, 10/8 | 26.3 million |
| Kansas City Chiefs-Green Bay Packers, 12/3 | 25.4 million |
“With the thrilling Lions-Chiefs opener drawing the largest NFL Kickoff Game audience since 2015, back-to-back early October blockbusters with more than 26 million viewers apiece, our first-ever Peacock exclusive NFL game, and last Sunday’s finale for the AFC East title, the 2023 Sunday Night Football season was a success from the opening kickoff to the final whistle,” said Rick Cordella, President, NBC Sports. “With a best-in-class presentation and our record-setting 13 years at #1 in primetime, we are looking forward to the postseason, which begins with three Wild Card matchups on NBCUniversal platforms and features Peacock’s Saturday night presentation of the NFL’s first-ever exclusive live-streamed playoff game. It’s been a historic season for the NFL and NBCUniversal.”
Key Demos and Metrics for NBC
Sunday Night Football topped all primetime shows in average viewership and household rating and for the 16th consecutive season ranked number 1 among adults 18-49. In addition, SNF posted nine of the top 13 primetime shows this fall.
| Category | 2023 | vs. 2022 | Primetime Rank |
| Average Viewers | 19.9 million | +6% | #1 |
| HH Rating | 10.2 | +4% | #1 |
| Adult 18-49 Rating | 5.4 | +6% | #1 |
Three NBC SNF games averaged at least nine million female viewers (Nielsen only) – the most in a season since 2015. The 49ers-Seahawks Thanksgiving night game led with 10 million female viewers, followed by Chiefs-Jets at 9.4 million, and Cowboys-49ers at 9.0 million. In total, SNF averaged 7.1 million female (2+) viewers in 2023, marking the series’ best season in the demographic since 2019.
In addition, women accounted for 38 percent of the audience for Chiefs-Jets, which is the second-highest percentage in the 18-season history of NBC SNF (excluding holiday games), behind only Washington-Dallas on Dec. 26, 2021 (38.4 percent).
‘Football Night in America’ Metrics
NBC’s Football Night in America (FNIA) studio show averaged 7.5 million viewers, the most-watched season of FNIA since 2016 and up 3 percent from last year. FNIA continues its reign as sports’ most-watched weekly studio show for the 18th consecutive year since the show debuted in 2006.
In addition, the 8-8:23 p.m. ET portion of Football Night in America (including pre-kick coverage), averaged 13.1 million viewers, and a 3.4 rating among Adults 18-49, which would rank No. 3 and No. 4, respectively, among regularly-scheduled primetime shows in the demographic.
Peacock Metrics
NBC Sports Digital hit another viewership milestone for Sunday Night Football in 2023 led by Peacock, delivering a full-season Average Minute Audience (AMA) above 1.5 million viewers (1.56 million) for the first time across Peacock, NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports app and NFL Digital properties – up 33 percent from the prior record (1.17 million) set last year.
The streaming audience has grown such that NBC Sports Digital’s AMA of 1.56 million viewers for SNF tops the primetime average (8:30-11:30 p.m. ET) of all cable networks over the 19 FNIA nights this season (excludes Sat., Dec. 23 show, which was at 3 p.m. ET).
Peacock’s first-ever exclusive NFL game on Saturday, Dec. 23 between the Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Chargers delivered the night’s largest primetime audience, averaging 7.3 million viewers.
In addition to the record-setting AMA for the season, three games topped the two million mark (which had never previously been reached by a regular-season NBC Sports simulstream), and the eight most simulstreamed regular-season games in NBC Sports’ NFL history came this season.
