Ratings Roundup: TNF Sees All Time Ratings Spike Securing Prime’s Eighth Year of Ratings Growth
Story Highlights
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press releases and reports around the industry. In this week’s edition, ESPN sees highest October viewership in a decade across weekday programming; ABC secures top Game of the Week for the 10th week in a row; and more.
Monday Night Football Week 10 Viewership: Philadelphia Eagles at Green Bay Packers
ESPN’s Monday Night Football Week 10 matchup between the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers (November 10, 8:15 p.m. ET) averaged 20.6 million viewers (ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, & NFL+).
Among the highlights:
The audience peaked north of 23 million viewers late in the second quarter (9:15 to 9:30 p.m. ET).
Eagles-Packers was up 16% from MNF Week 10 in 2023 (Broncos-Bills), which aired on the same networks, and up 70% from MNF Week 10 in 2024 (Dolphins-Rams), which aired on ESPN, ESPN Deportes, and NFL+.
Eagles-Packers is now ESPN’s most-watched Week 10 game across the 20 seasons of Monday Night Football.
The Eagles-Packers matchup is the fourth Monday Night Football game this season to top 20 million viewers — tying 2023’s full season total for the most games in a single MNF season to surpass that mark.
2025 MNF Games over 20 million Viewers: Week 1: Minnesota at Chicago; Week 3: Detroit at Baltimore; Week 5: Kansas City at Jacksonville; Week 10: Philadelphia at Green Bay.
Monday Night Football Now Up Double Digits Year-Over-Year
Now, season-to-date, ESPN’s Monday Night Football is averaging 15.6 viewers (14 games across 11 weeks), up 10% season-to-date and remains on pace for the second most-watched season of Monday Night Football in the ESPN era.
ESPN Earns Highest October Viewership in a Decade for its Weekday Programming; Several Shows Score Multi-Year Highs
ESPN’s weekday daytime viewership (7 a.m.–7 p.m. ET) was its highest in a decade for the month of October, driven by audience growth across all 10 studio shows in the 12-hour window. ESPN’s daytime viewership, averaging 424,000 viewers, up 13 percent year-over-year, and its best mark since 2015, follows a September where every individual studio show also saw healthy year-over-year growth. This results in one of ESPN’s strongest starts to the fall sports calendar amongst studio shows in recent years.
Individually, Get Up (464,000 viewers) and The Pat McAfee Show (439,000 viewers — YouTube and ESPN) set new October viewership records for their respective shows, while First Take (524,000 viewers) delivered its second most-watched October in the show’s history. NFL Live (443,000 viewers) and the 6 p.m. SportsCenter (502,000 viewers) each posted their best October in ten years and were up more than 20 percent year-over-year.
With the NBA season tipping off, NBA Today experienced a 26 percent year-over-year jump, while Pardon the Interruption also saw a 20 percent year-over-year jump. The 5 p.m. SportsCenter was also up 16 percent year-over-year from the same timeslot. Additionally, outside of the daytime window, the daily 11 p.m. SportsCenter (645,000 viewers) experienced a 45 percent year-over-year jump in October.
Among the individual show highlights:
- SportsCenter (7 a.m.): 268,000 viewers, most-watched October since 2019; up 6% year-over-year.
- Get Up: 464,000 viewers, most-watched October audience since the show debuted in 2018; up 13% year-over-year.
- First Take: 524,000 viewers, second most-watched October in the show’s eight-year history; up 3% year-over-year.
- The Pat McAfee Show: 439,000 viewers (YouTube viewership and ESPN metrics), most-watched October audience; up 12% year-over-year on ESPN only and 5% year-over-year across YouTube and ESPN.
- SportsCenter (2 p.m.): 312,000 viewers, most-watched October since 2020; up 16% year-over-year.NBA Today: 331,000 viewers, most-watched October for an ESPN NBA daily afternoon studio show since 2017; up 26% year-over-year.
- NFL Live: 443,000 viewers, most-watched October since 2015; up 23% year-over-year.
- SportsCenter (5 p.m.): 446,000 viewers; up 16% year-over-year from the same timeslot.
- Pardon the Interruption: 720,000 viewers, most-watched October since 2019; up 20% year-over-year.
- SportsCenter (6 p.m.): 502,000 viewers, most-watched October since 2015; up 28% year-over-year.
- SportsCenter (11 p.m.): 645,000 viewers; most-watched October since 2019; up 45% year-over-year.
ABC Scores Top Game of the Week for the 10th Straight Week; College GameDay Posts Week 11 Growth and Record Season Rolls On
ESPN’s college football coverage delivered strong audiences in Week 11, highlighted by a solid College GameDay Built by The Home Depot performance from Lubbock and continued network growth across ABC and ESPN networks.
College GameDay Highlights
- College GameDay Built by The Home Depot from Texas Tech averaged 2.2 million viewers, up 7 percent from Week 11 in 2024 (LSU) and topping the competition by 78 percent.
- The final hour averaged 2.8 million viewers, beating the competition by 74 percent.
- The Pat McAfee Show’s X feed drew 1.2 million unique viewers, while 54 million minutes were streamed on the ESPN App – a new record for the season.
- Season-to-date, College GameDay is averaging 2.7 million viewers, up 24 percent year-over-year, on pace for its most-watched season ever.
ESPN College Football Spotlights
- ESPN networks aired three of the top five most-watched games of Week 11, including the top game of the week for the 10th straight week.
- LSU-Alabama (7.5M viewers) was the most-watched game of the week, followed by Texas A&M-Missouri (4.9M) and BYU-Texas Tech (4.0M) among the top five.
- ESPN networks are averaging 2.1 million viewers, their highest mark through 11 weeks since 2011, up 16 percent year-over-year. ESPN networks own 23 of the top 26 games this season and more than 60 percent of total game minutes watched.
- ABC (6.8M avg. viewers) is pacing for its best audience on record through 11 weeks, up 19 percent year-over-year. The network has aired 11 of the top 12 games this season to date and has more minutes watched than all other broadcast networks combined.
CBS Sports’ Record-Setting NFL Season Continues
- Led by Patriots-Buccaneers, CBS Sports scored its best Week 10 single header in 14 years with 18.209 million viewers
- Sunday’s coverage is up +18% vs. last year’s comparable singleheader
- “NFL on CBS” has its best viewership since the NFL returned to CBS in 1998 with 19.338 million viewers through week 10, up 4% vs. last year
Mid-Year Success: ESPN’s Monday Night Football Has Reached Nearly 110M Fans
Anchored by Monday Night Football, ESPN’s first half of the 2025 NFL season is seeing viewership gains across its entire game and studio shows, with numerous multi-year highs or near-record numbers. Monday Night Football is on pace for its second-highest audience in its 20 seasons on ESPN, while Monday Night Countdown, Sunday NFL Countdown, and NFL Live are all experiencing their best audience in at least six seasons, while impressively up double-digits year-over-year.
Monday Night Football’s strong first half sets the foundation for its second half, which begins tonight with the Eagles and Packers (November 10, 8 p.m. ET) at Lambeau Field, in a matchup of NFL division leaders.
Monday Night Football on Near Record Pace
Monday Night Football has reached 109 million fans through Week 9 (13 games), up 15% from the same point in 2024 (11 games), while averaging 15.2 million fans per game (13 games). The average audience of 15.2 million fans is ESPN’s second highest through Week 9, dating back to 2006 when ESPN first began airing Monday Night Football, and up 6% comparatively through Week 9 in 2024
Excluding MNF’s Week 4 and Week 6 this season, the two weeks ESPN had one game on ABC and a second on ESPN with overlapping action, ESPN’s Monday Night Football viewership jumped to 17.1 million viewers (9 games). This impressive number includes MNF Week 2 and Week 7, when ESPN aired a true doubleheader with a 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. kickoff.
ESPN’s viewership successes extend to individual games, with three games achieving audiences north of 22 million viewers (Week 1: Minnesota at Chicago; Week 3: Detroit at Baltimore; Week 5: Kansas City at Jacksonville). The Lions-Ravens telecast, with an audience of 22,835,000 viewers, is ESPN’s fourth most-watched MNF game in 20 seasons (350+ total games).
ESPN’s NFL Studio Shows Delivering Best Viewership Since Before 2020 Season
ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown is averaging 1.5 million viewers per show, up 20% year-over-year, while Sunday NFL Countdown is averaging 1.3 million viewers, up 11% year-over-year. In addition to growing their audience from the 2024 season, both shows are experiencing multi-year highs, with Monday Night Countdown delivering its best audience since 2017 and Sunday NFL Countdown its best since 2019.
NFL Live, ESPN’s daily NFL show, is off to the show’s best start since 2016 and up 20% year-over-year, delivering 440,000 viewers per show.
TNF Tonight Hits All-Time High + Raiders-Broncos Delivers Prime’s Eighth YoY Increase
Prime Video’s exclusive coverage of Thursday Night Football continues to achieve new viewership milestones on a campaign toward the franchise’s most-watched season ever. Thursday’s AFC-West tilt between the Raiders and Broncos averaged 13.93 million viewers, delivering the eighth year-over-year increase of the season, and driving TNF on Prime closer to an unprecedented third-straight year of double-digit viewership growth.
Thursday also attracted TNF Tonight’s largest audience ever. TNF on Prime’s pregame show that kicks off each week at 7:00PM ET averaged 2.18 million viewers on Thursday, edging this year’s season-opening show from Green Bay (2.13M). Both TNF Tonight and TNF Nightcap are up significantly over last year and welcoming their largest audiences on record this season.
Below, find additional viewership highlights from Raiders-Broncos and TNF on Prime’s fourth season of exclusive coverage. Please note that all the 2025 figures are from Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel measurement.
- Raiders-Broncos averaged 13.93 million viewers, up +2% vs. last season’s comparable game (13.63M, Bengals-Ravens, 11/7/2024).
- Thursday’s game marked the eighth time this season that TNF has posted a year-over-year increase.
- Thursday’s game attracted a peak audience of 15.74 million viewers between 9:15 and 9:29 PM ET.
- TNF on Prime has now averaged more than 13M viewers eight times this season, equaling last year’s total.
- Season-to-date, TNF is averaging 14.84M viewers, continuing its best season on Prime Video, and highest for TNF on any network since 2015.
- The nine-week average is up +13% vs. last year’s season-to-date average (13.08M), +12% over the 2024 full-season average (13.20M), +25% over the 2023 full-season average (11.86M), and +55% over the 2022 full-season average (9.58M).
- Through nine weeks, TNF on Prime is delivering double-digit gains across key demographics:
- Within the P18-34 demo, TNF is averaging 2.91M viewers, up +12% vs. last year’s full-season average (2.61M).
- Season-to-date, TNF on Prime continues to attract the largest P18-34 audience among all NFL full-season packages.
- Within the P18-49 demo, TNF is averaging 6.86M viewers, up +14% vs. last year’s full-season average (5.99M).
- Within the P25-54 demo, TNF is averaging 7.45M viewers, up +13% vs. last year’s full-season average (6.58M).
- Within the P18-34 demo, TNF is averaging 2.91M viewers, up +12% vs. last year’s full-season average (2.61M).
- Season-to-date, TNF on Prime’s median age is 48.3, which is almost eight years younger than audiences watching the NFL on linear networks (56.0).
- TNF Tonight, TNF on Prime’s pregame show, registered its all-time best viewership on Thursday with an average of 2.18M. TNF Tonight is now averaging 1.81M viewers this season, up +18% over last year’s full-season average (1.53M), up +30% over the 2023 full-season average (1.39M), and +61% over the 2022 full-season average (1.12M).
- TNF on Prime’s postgame show, TNF Nightcap, is averaging 2.76M viewers this season, up +35% over last year’s full-season average (2.04M), up +50% over the 2023 full-season average (1.85M), and +65% over the 2022 full-season average (1.68M).
- Nightcap has delivered its seven most-watched episodes this season.
- Nightcap’s median age is 45.5, the youngest among all NFL shoulder programming.
NWSL on ESPN scores 61 percent increase in viewership for the 2025 regular season
The 2025 National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) on ESPN season delivered record-breaking growth across ESPN platforms, scoring a 61 percent increase in average viewership for the regular season, according to Nielsen Big Data + Panel.
The 17-match schedule across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN+, Disney+, and ESPN Deportes averaged 228,000 viewers (P2+), up significantly from 141,000 viewers during the 2024 season – the inaugural year of NWSL on ESPN.
Presented by Ally, the second season of NWSL on ESPN underscores the surging momentum of women’s sports across ESPN platforms, joining the recent record-setting audiences for the WNBA and NCAA Women’s Basketball.
2025 NWSL on ESPN season Highlights
- Washington Spirit Drive Viewership: Three of the top five most-watched NWSL matches on ABC and ESPN featured the Washington Spirit, led by U.S. Women’s National Team star Trinity Rodman.
- Strong Female Viewership: For the second consecutive season, nearly 50 percent of the NWSL on ESPN audience was female, continuing to demonstrate the league’s broad appeal and connection with female fans.
- Record Growth on ESPN Deportes: NWSL on ESPN Deportes viewership surged 109 percent compared to the 2024 average audience, underscoring the league’s growing reach among Spanish-speaking fans.
Top 5 matches of the season:
Date | Match | P2+ Avg. | Networks |
March 15 | Kansas City Current vs. Portland Thorns FC | 610,000 | ABC, ESPN+ |
May 10 | Chicago Stars vs. Washington Spirit | 561,000 | ABC, ESPN+ |
August 3 | Washington Spirit vs. Portland Thorns FC | 555,000 | ABC, ESPN+ |
March 29 | Orlando Pride vs. San Diego Wave | 448,000 | ESPN, ESPN+, ESPN Deportes |
August 9 | NJ/NY Gotham FC vs. Washington Spirit | 325,000 | ESPN, ESPN+, ESPN Deportes |
NWSL Announces Record-Breaking Growth Ahead of 2025 NWSL Playoffs, Presented by Google Pixel
The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) today announced continued momentum across all major audience metrics, closing the 2025 regular season with record-breaking growth in viewership, attendance and digital engagement.
VIEWERSHIP
The NWSL delivered its fourth consecutive year of linear viewership growth, up 22 percent year-over-year, reflecting the league’s sustained rise as a major force in live sports entertainment. Growth among women 18-34, up 30 percent year-over-year, further solidifies the NWSL’s position as one of the fastest-growing sports properties with this key audience.
Digital viewership surged as well, with total live streams up 30 percent year-over-year and a record 2.62 billion minutes watched across all platforms – the highest total in league history. Viewership on ION’s FAST (Free Ad-Supporting Streaming TV) platform contributed significantly to this record, with 3.25 million total hours viewed, up 24 percent year-over-year.
SOCIAL GROWTH
The NWSL’s social presence expanded significantly in 2025, with a 27 percent year-over-year increase in total followers across platforms. On TikTok, followers doubled and engagement climbed 68 percent, underscoring the league’s growing resonance with women 18-34 and reinforcing its position as a cultural touchpoint for the next generation of fans.
ATTENDANCE
In-person fandom reached new highs, marking another season of robust growth in live attendance and local engagement.
Largest single-game crowd in league history: 40,091 fans attended Bay FC vs. Washington Spirit at Oracle Park in August. The NWSL now owns 48 of the top 50 most attended matches in U.S. women’s professional league sports history.
Third consecutive season averaging more than 10,000 fans per match, the longest such streak in league history.
A record six clubs including Angel City FC, Bay FC, Kansas City Current, Portland Thorns FC, San Diego Wave FC, and Washington Spirit averaged 10,000 or more fans per home match, up from four in 2024.
