NFL Opens 2022 Season With Higher Ratings Compared to Last Year
By Movieguide® Staff
After its debut week for the 2022 season, the NFL has already surpassed last year’s opening weekend TV ratings.
NBC’s Sunday Night Football and Monday Night Football telecasts led the way, helping total viewership for the first week of football to reach 18.5 million viewers across seven broadcast windows.
According to the NFL, 121 million people from the United States tuned in for at least a few minutes between Thursday and Monday.
For the league’s second week, broadcasters and the NFL will test out their first Thursday Night Football game exclusive to Amazon’s Prime Video.
While the NFL does not expect the streaming exclusives to reach the same numbers as broadcast TV games, NFL head of communications Jeff Miller said the model suits their long-term plans.
“It’s really a long-term strategic decision for the league,” Miller said. “We don’t have a number in mind, but our expectation is the ratings may very well not reach what Fox got [in 2021]. We believe this is the right thing to do in the long term, whether or not the number is what Fox got a year ago.”
Movieguide® previously reported:
Streaming services proved to be the primary source of entertainment this past year, solidifying that television’s future is moving away from traditional broadcast TV.
However, live sports have been viewed as a stalwart of traditional television.
The NFL recently agreed to new rights deals with their current broadcast partners. But with a steep 79.5% increase, which comes out to an additional $4.54 billion a year, the future of live sports on broadcast television is expected to end.
The deals include Amazon acquiring the majority of “Thursday Night Football” games and multicast options for various streaming services.
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