NFL Ratings Hit 35-Year High as Streaming and Broadcast Both Win

The NFL’s 2025 regular season viewership surged 10% to an 18.7 million per-game average, its highest in over three decades, proving the league's hybrid media strategy is a massive success for legacy and streaming partners alike.

• All boats lifted: Every one of the league’s media partners saw viewership grow. NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” is on track to be primetime’s top show for the 15th straight year, while CBS viewership jumped 11% to its best season on record. Even Amazon’s “Thursday Night Football” saw its audience swell 16% to a high-water mark of 15.3 million viewers.

• The Nielsen asterisk: There is an important asterisk on the numbers, however. A change in Nielsen’s measurement methodology helped juice the ratings by better accounting for out-of-home viewing in bars and incorporating "big data" from set-top boxes, a change that broadly benefits all live sports.

• The world is watching: The league's international push is also paying dividends. Viewership for its six overseas games on NFL Network jumped 32% from the prior year, demonstrating a growing global appetite for the sport.

The NFL has successfully navigated the transition to a hybrid broadcast and streaming model, expanding its audience and solidifying its position as the most dominant property in American media. The league's ability to create must-watch events for every type of media partner gives it unparalleled leverage.