The end of the Paris Olympics took a bite out of the NFL’s Week 1 preseason audience, with games on NFL Network down 14% from last year and down 12% from two years ago (excluding HOF Game for all years). The seven live preseason games on NFL Net last week averaged 1.38 million viewers from Thursday-Sunday, down from 1.6 million for Week 1 in 2023 (10 games), and down from 1.56 million in 2022 (eight games). Cowboys-Rams on Sunday afternoon up against the Paris Closing Ceremony was the best game in Week 1 of the preseason, averaging 2.06 million viewers, narrowly missing out the top spot last week among all non-Olympics sports telecasts (NASCAR from Richmond on USA took the top spot with 2.22 million).
The NFL preseason wasn’t the only sport affected by the end to the Olympics. CBS averaged 1.44 million viewers for the final round of the PGA Tour Wyndham Championship on Sunday afternoon, down 14% from last year’s Sunday round.
The chart below lists viewership figures for select recent sports telecasts.
