The NFL saw a minor decline in television ratings in 2024, but despite this drop in viewership, it still maintained its dominant position on the television landscape. Let’s dive into the data behind the NFL’s drop in viewership and explore why the league managed to weather a small decline this past season while continuing to reign supreme in TV ratings.
NFL Dominates TV Ratings Despite Minor Decline
According to Front Office Sports, the NFL averaged 17.5 million viewers per game across its various networks in the 2024 season. This represents a 2.2% decrease from 2023, when the NFL experienced a 7% increase in viewership compared to the previous year. Although this slight drop may raise some eyebrows, the minor decline in ratings, however, didn’t have much of an impact on how the NFL fared collectively compared to other programming.
Despite this minor decline, the NFL remains the far and away undisputed leader of television ratings. Of the 100 most-watched television events in 2024, a staggering 70 of them were NFL games.
While this is a significant decrease from the 93% share in 2023, it’s essential to consider two major factors that contributed to the shift: the Paris Summer Olympics and the U.S. presidential election. In fact, the NFL’s 70% share of the top-100 is almost identical to the 71% it claimed during the last election year in 2020.
Even in matchups with little postseason intrigue, the NFL’s viewership numbers remained remarkably high. In fact, the game with the highest viewership of the season was the Thanksgiving Day showdown between the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys. Despite the matchup featuring backup quarterbacks on two teams that didn’t make the postseason, the game still pulled a season-high 38.8 million viewers.
On the broadcast partner front, Amazon Prime Video, home of Thursday Night Football and the Black Friday Game, saw the largest increase in viewership, with an 11% boost from the previous season.
Meanwhile, the NFL’s traditional network partners had mixed results. ESPN and Fox reported declines in viewership, while NBC experienced a modest 1% increase. CBS didn’t report its viewership numbers, and Netflix, which aired the NFL’s Christmas Day doubleheader, averaged more than 24 million viewers—further solidifying the NFL’s cross-platform dominance.
