YouTube’s first exclusive NFL game drew a sizable audience, coming in ahead of last year’s streaming-exclusive contest in the opening week of the season.
The streamer says 17.3 million people worldwide watched the Los Angeles Chargers’ win over the Kansas City Chiefs Friday in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The great majority of those viewers came from the United States — 16.2 million, based on Nielsen figures that include first-party data from YouTube. The remaining 1.1 million viewers were outside the U.S., according to YouTube’s data. The U.S. total also includes over-the-air broadcasts in the teams’ home markets.
The 16.2 million viewers in the U.S. is a 16 percent improvement over last year’s opening week Friday night game (also played in Brazil), which drew 14 million viewers. The total includes viewing via the YouTube app YouTube TV, the main telecast and alternate feeds featuring YouTube creators. NBC Sports handled production of the game.
A day earlier, the season-opening game on NBC and Peacock averaged 28.3 million viewers despite an more than hour-long weather delay that pushed the end of the Philadelphia Eagles’ win over the Dallas Cowboys well past midnight ET. Prior to the delay, the game was averaging 31.9 million viewers and likely would have stayed above 30 million without the 65-minute interruption. Even so, the full contest is the second most-watched NFL kickoff game to date, behind last year’s 29.2 million.
Peacock and other NBC and NFL digital platforms accounted for 4.9 million of the 28.3 million viewers, or about 17 percent of the full audience.
Ratings figures for the rest of the NFL’s opening weekend, will be available later in the week. Nielsen launched its “big data plus panel” ratings for sports programs on Sept. 1, combining its traditional home-based panel sample with measurement from smart TVs and set-top boxes in 45 million households. The big data addition means Nielsen’s same-day ratings will come two or three days after a program airs rather than the day after.
Sept. 8, 10:20 a.m. Updated with ratings for the NFL’s season opener on NBC and Peacock.
