NFL Viewership Dominates Ratings For Broadcast, Streaming: With Or Without Taylor Swift, Fans Are Watching Football In 2023

Several media companies have gotten a lift in their viewership figures thanks to musician and all-around superstar celebrity Taylor Swift attending NFL games of the Kansas City Chiefs, the team her boyfriend Travis Kelce plays on.

Here’s a look at the winners in the month of September for broadcast and streaming viewership.

What Happened: Media companies continue to bet big on National Football League rights due to strong viewership and advertising spending.

A new report on viewership in the month of September shows that NFL games continue to lead the way by a large margin.

The period included the start of the NCAA Football and NFL seasons. While it’s listed as September, the data covers the period of Aug. 28 through Sept. 24.

Data from Nielsen shared by Deadline showed broadcast viewership up 13% month-over-month in the month of September. Viewership for the key advertising demographics of ages 18-49 and 25-54 were up around 30% month-over-month. Broadcast viewership was also up year-over-year in the month of August.

Viewership for cable was down 1.1% month-over-month for the time period, with sports viewership on cable increasing 25.5% month-over-month.

For the time period tracked by Nielsen, broadcast made up 23.0% of viewership, streaming represented 37.5%, cable was 29.8% and other was 9.6%.

Cable and streaming saw their market share decline from the previous month thanks to the increased viewership for sports on broadcast during the month.

Related Link: Amazon Is Winning Its Bet On NFL Rights 

The Winners and Losers: The broadcast networks are owned by Paramount Global PARAPARAA, Comcast Corporation CMCSA, Fox Corp. FOXFOXA and Walt Disney Co DIS.

All four companies aired NFL games during the time period. It was Fox that had rights to the Chiefs and Chicago Bears game that Swift attended.

The game was watched by 24.3 million viewers and saw strong female viewership, ranking as one of the top broadcasts for the entire week.

Comcast has the rights to Sunday Night Football and has reported strong viewership. The company also had the rights to the NFL kickoff game, which aired on Sept. 6. The game was watched by an average of 26.8 million viewers on NBC and Peacock.

While cable viewership fell from the previous month, one of the winners was ESPN, a sports network owned by Walt Disney Co.

ESPN had the top 11 cable telecasts for the time period, with 10 being football-related and the U.S. Open tennis coverage ranking ninth for the time period.

Prime Video, owned by Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN, saw viewership up 7.5% month-over-month. The boost was helped by the company’s rights to “Thursday Night Football” NFL games and a second season of “The Wheel of Time.” Amazon’s market share of 3.6% of the television market for the time period was a company best.

Amazon reported two of its “Thursday Night Football” games were the company’s most-watched since taking over the NFL rights last season.

Netflix Inc NFLX had the three most watched streaming titles with “Suits,” “Virgin River” and “One Piece” for the time period. The company’s viewership dropped 5% from the previous month, which could be due to sports fans watching more live content and less streaming content.

For the streaming segment, the market share was as follows for the time period:

• YouTube, a unit of Alphabet Inc GOOGGOOGL: 9%
• Netflix: 7.8%
• Prime Video: 3.6%
• Hulu, majority owned by Disney: 3.6%
• Disney+: 1.9%
• Tubi, a unit of Fox: 1.3%
• Max, a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery WBD: 1.2%
• Roku Channel, a unit of Roku Inc ROKU: 1.1%
• Peacock, a unit of Comcast: 1.1%
• Paramount+: 1%

Going forward, the numbers could continue to be strong for broadcast and the companies with NFL and NCAA Football rights. Swift attended two additional Chiefs games after the reporting period ended, with NBC and Amazon covering the games.

Media rights for NFL games are expensive, but the data shows that the games continue to dominate and can lead to big increases in viewership.

The data also showe fans are tuning into football content whether Swift is in the stands or not. 

Read Next: Analyst Urges NFL To Buy ABC From Disney 

Photos: Unsplash, Shutterstock