NFL Kickoff Weekend 2022 Draws BIG Numbers For CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN

By Barry Janoff

September 13, 2022: People across the country apparently were primed and ready for the return of the NFL, with broadcast partners attracting huge — and in some cases, historic — numbers.

The NFL said that more than 121 million people watched NFL games during Kickoff Weekend, a 5% increase from the opening weekend of the 2021 season.

NBC Sports said NBC’s Sunday Night Football game Sept. 11 with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeating the Dallas Cowboys registered a Total Audience Delivery average of 25.1 million viewers.

That was the largest audience for NBC’s Sunday Night Football opener since 2015 (New York Giants-Dallas Cowboys, 26.9 million, Sept. 13, 2015).

CBS Sports said the Sunday Sept. 11 regional overtime game with the Pittsburgh Steelers-Cincinnati Bengals recorded the network’s most-watched Week 1 regional game window since 1998, when the NFL returned to CBS. The game window averaged 17.387 million viewers.

CBS Sports said it averaged 17.042 million viewers for its opening weekend doubleheader, the best Week 1 average audience in four years.

Fox Sports said its Sunday doubleheader had an average of 15,355,000 viewers an increase of 11% vs. 2021.

America’s Game of the Week on Fox, the Green Bay Packers at the Minnesota Vikings, drew an average of 18,546,000 viewers, up 12% from last season.

Fox Sports’ NFL regional window averaged 12,147,000, up 7% vs. 2021.

ESPN said last night’s Monday Night Football game between the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks had an average of 19,850,000 viewers, the most-watched Monday Night Football game since 2009 and third-best during ESPN’s Monday Night Football platform (270-plus games).

In addition, the alternate presentation on ESPN 2 of Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli averaged 1.5 million viewers, up 86% over Week 1 in 2021.

The game marked the debut of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman in the Monday Night Football broadcast booth.

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