NFL TV audiences rebound in Week 2 after a 13% Week 1 drop

Fox Sports reported that the Cowboys' 37-20 victory over the Commanders, which aired nationally in the late afternoon window last Sunday, drew an average of 27.2 million viewers. That is the largest audience for any game telecast on any network so far this season.

It came one week after a surprising 13% drop in the league's Week 1 audience. Eric Fisher at Front Office Sports gathered the networks' Week 2 figures, and together they show a quick recovery.

Every window came back

The Patriots' 20-3 victory against the Steelers in the early Sunday window headlined CBS's Week 2 singleheader, which averaged 19.34 million viewers. That made it the network's most-watched Week 2 singleheader on record. The audience was up 29% from last year's comparable window, and it was CBS's best September NFL singleheader since 1989.

For operators who buy or sell NFL inventory window by window, the Week 2 numbers suggest that a soft opening weekend at one network may not predict what the following week delivers in the same slots. That is worth noting before anyone reprices inventory based on a single weekend.

Dallas sets the ceiling

The Cowboys played in both of the season's two largest telecasts: 27.2 million on Fox in Week 2 and 25.7 million on NBC in the Sept. 13 opener against the Giants. Front Office Sports noted that Dallas remains a major draw even though it hasn't reached an NFC Championship game since winning Super Bowl XXX after the 1995 season.

Nearly three decades without a conference title, and still the top of the ratings chart. The sources don't say why Dallas draws, whether it's market size, stars or something else, so the pattern is strong but unexplained.

In Week 3, the Cowboys play the Ravens in CBS's late-afternoon national window, and the game is in Rio de Janeiro.

The ruler keeps moving

Front Office Sports added that the Week 2 figures match the higher viewership expected after another round of Nielsen measurement changes. That suggests part of the lift could come from how viewers are counted, not only from who is watching.

Front Office Sports reported that the new numbers match the bump in viewership that was expected after Nielsen recently rolled out another round of measurement changes. That suggests some share of year-over-year gains could reflect the new counting method rather than new viewers. For operators who compare across seasons, part of any gain could be the change in method itself. Comparing within a single season, the same network in the same slot, gives a cleaner read.

The measurement story has a limit, though. Week 1 saw a surprising 13% decline in the NFL's audience, and the newest gains point to the league returning to form, as was expected. The counting change could raise the level. Week-to-week swings still appear to come from what's on the field and when it airs.

Monday night, then Rio

In Week 3, Dallas plays Baltimore in the late afternoon national game on CBS Sports, with that game taking place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.