NBC Sports Dominates Fall Weekends In Primetime -- College Football is #1 on Saturday Nights, Sunday Night Football Ranks #1 Across All of Primetime

October 17, 2023

Sunday Night Football Pacing for 13^th Consecutive Year as Primetime’s No. 1 Show, Averaging 23 Million Viewers Across NBC and Peacock

With the new B1G Saturday Night college football package and high-profile Notre Dame Football primetime games, coupled with Sunday Night Football continuing its unprecedented run, NBC Sports has dominated weekends in primetime through mid-October – ranking No. 1 in viewership on both Saturday and Sunday nights.

On Saturday nights, NBC Sports is averaging 4.1 million viewers across NBC, Peacock and NBC Sports Digital platforms through seven college football games (9/2-10/14). That figure includes 3.84 million viewers measured by Nielsen and an Average Minute Audience of 231,000 across Peacock and NBC Sports Digital measured by Adobe Analytics. Both the 4.1 million and 3.84 million figures rank number one in Saturday primetime, which includes all sporting events beginning between 6:30-8:30 p.m. ET. (Note: Nielsen measurement does not include streaming across NBC Sports’ platforms but does include streaming figures across most other networks/media groups).

NBC’s Sunday Night Football, primetime’s No. 1 show for an unprecedented 12 consecutive years, is averaging 23 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL Digital – easily leading primetime across all nights and marking the series’ second-best start ever through Week 6 (behind only 2015).

Additional NBC Sports’ NFL and college football viewership notes:

• Notre Dame’s one-sided 48-20 win over USC last Saturday night averaged 6.8 million viewers across all platforms – marking NBC Sports’ most-watched Trojans-Fighting Irish game since the famed “Bush Push” game in 2005.
   
• The Buffalo Bills’ 14-9 victory over the New York Giants on SNF last weekend averaged a Total Audience Delivery of 18 million viewers, easily winning the night in primetime.
   
• Football Night in America, the most-watched studio show in sports since 2006, is averaging 8.0 million viewers – the show’s best mark through six weeks since 2016.
   
• The new Saturday 7 p.m. ET College Countdown studio show, which leads into Saturday primetime games, is averaging 2.0 million viewers.