Weather delay has massive effect on Cowboys vs. Eagles ratings

by: Barkley Truax 20 minutes ago BarkleyTruax

Thursday’s 2025 NFL season opener between the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys drew in 28.3 million viewers on average, per release. However, this could have been higher had it not been for the extended weather delay in the second half.

Near the end of the second quarter, the broadcast averaged 34.3 million viewers between NBC and Peacock from 9:30-9:45 p.m. ET. This is the largest peak audience ever for an NFL kickoff game.

According to NBC, the game was on track to finishing with an average of 31.6 million viewers before the delay, which occurred during the third quarter, which would have ranked as the most-watched NFL kickoff game ever.

Instead, weather in and around Philadelphia forced the game into a delay for a little over an hour. Millions of viewers clicked off the game by the time it resumed after 11 p.m. ET. From 11:24 p.m. until the game ended at 12:18 a.m. ET, NBC and Peacock averaged 20.2 million viewers.

This brought the official average down to 28.3 million average viewers. These ratings were provided to the NFL by official Nielsen Big Data + Panel and digital data from Adobe Analytics. It falls to the second-most watched NFL kickoff game ever, behind last year’s opener between the Baltimore Ravens and Kansas City Chiefs, which averaged 29.2 million viewers.

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