The NFL didn’t get the start to the 2026 season it wanted.
According to Sports Business Journal, the average audience for NFL games during Week 1 came in at 19.5 million viewers. That figure represents a 13 percent decline from the 22.3 million figure the league averaged during last year’s Week 1 games.
This was despite ESPN’s Monday Night Football matchup between the Chiefs and Broncos, which drew 23.2 million viewers, the highest total number of viewers for any Week 1 MNF game since ESPN acquired the game 20 years ago.
Some explanations exist for the drop.
As Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio writes, “This year, Fox and CBS had competing national windows, at 4:25 p.m. ET. In the second half of the double-doubleheader, Packers-Vikings attracted 18.6 million to CBS, with 20.3 million watching Commanders-Eagles on Fox, via Eric Fisher of Front Office Sports.
“The extra window, and the ensuing dilution of the competing CBS and Fox audiences, surely pulled down the per-game average from 2025, when Fox televised Lions-Packers in Week 1.”
While that explanation can, and likely does, explain much of the downturn in numbers, it will offer no consolation to league executives who pride themselves on delivering ever-growing audiences week in and week out.
In fairness, college football’s Week 1 numbers weren’t anything to squawk about either. However, college football also features more games and far more games deemed non-competitive, compared with the NFL, which delivers fewer games with far more parity.
So, either way you slice or dice it, it’s not a good start for the NFL.