'SNF' viewership up 8% from last year; 'Football Night in America' up 5% from 2017
"I'll watch that," said basketball legend Michael Jordan in NBC Sports'
spot promoting Aaron Rodgers and the Packers against Tom Brady and the Patriots on NBC's "Sunday Night Football" this past weekend. Jordan wasn't the only one, as New England's 31-17 victory over Green Bay delivered a huge audience and boosted "Sunday Night Football" to its highest midseason viewership in three years.
At the midway point of the NFL season, "SNF," primetime TV's No. 1 show for a history-making seven consecutive years, once again tops primetime television and is averaging a total audience delivery of 19.7 million viewers - up 8 percent from last year at this point (18.3 million), and pacing for "SNF's" best season since the record-setting 2015.
This past Sunday, Packers-Patriots registered a TAD average of 24.1 million viewers - ranking as the most-watched Week 9 game in the 13-year history of "SNF" on NBC, and a 66 percent jump from last year's Week 9 game (Raiders-Dolphins, 14.5 million), according to official national live + same day data released by Nielsen, and digital data from Adobe Analytics.
"With legendary matchups like Rodgers vs. Brady, exciting new players, high-scoring offenses, and compelling games, the NFL continues to deliver content and audiences unmatched by any property, year after year," said Mark Lazarus, chairman of NBC Broadcasting and Sports. "We're looking forward to the second half of our schedule, which features many crucial divisional matchups, the Thanksgiving night game, plus the Week 17 flex game. We expect 'SNF' to finish atop the primetime rankings yet again."
