Overview
- The Patriots–Seahawks season opener averaged 25.1 million viewers, a figure released Sept. 14 that is down about 11–12% from last year and the weakest kickoff audience since 2022.
- NBC reported the number as a Nielsen-only metric that now incorporates the network’s first‑party streaming data, a change that makes direct year‑over‑year comparisons with prior combined Nielsen+Adobe figures less straightforward.
- The game aired on a Wednesday to accommodate an Australia international game on Thursday, a scheduling trade‑off driven by the league’s global push and by U.S. rules that limit Friday broadcasts.
- Despite the overall decline, the kickoff delivered NBC’s largest adults 18–49 audience for a kickoff since 2021 and peaked at about 27.4 million viewers in the 9:00–9:15 p.m. ET quarter‑hour; Telemundo added roughly 423,000 viewers.
- The NFL’s Melbourne international game averaged about 18.5 million U.S. viewers on Netflix, underscoring that sizable NFL audiences now live on nontraditional platforms and that the league and networks will watch upcoming national windows for clearer trends.