Michael David Smith ,
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At a time when virtually nothing else on American television can draw 25 million viewers, the NFL had two different games top the 25 million viewer mark on Sunday.
Fox announced that its afternoon game between the Cowboys and Bears reached 25.5 million viewers, while NBC announced that its Sunday Night Football game between the Chiefs and Giants reached 25.3 million viewers.
The 25 million viewer mark is something that non-football programming simply can’t deliver: The most recent World Series, NBA Finals, and Academy Awards, to name a few of the other major events on American television, all delivered less than 20 million viewers.
Those audience numbers help explain why NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is eager to renegotiate the league’s TV rights deals . There’s nothing more lucrative on American television than the NFL, and Goodell knows the league has leverage in negotiations with the TV partners who are eager to keep the NFL for the foreseeable future.
The NFL has the ability to opt out of its Sunday and Thursday TV deals after the 2029 season and out of its Monday Night Football deal after 2030, but the league may try to secure new deals earlier than that, knowing that its TV partners want to hold onto the huge viewership numbers that the NFL delivers.
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