NFL Network’s first preseason under ESPN ownership began with six national game broadcasts in Week 1 that averaged 1.93 million viewers.
Last year’s eight-game Week 1 preseason slate on NFL Network averaged 2.1 million viewers, which marked an all-time high in the channel’s final season under league ownership. That included two Sunday games; NFL Network did not air any games on Sunday last week.
Excluding the two Sunday games from last year, NFL Network’s average audience of 1.93 million viewers is up about 3% over 1.88 million viewers for the comparable six non-Sunday games in Week 1 a year ago, according to ESPN. This year’s figures are measured using Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel methodology, while last year’s preseason audiences were calculated with panel-only data.
NFL Network officially became part of ESPN on April 1 after the finalization of the deal that saw the league acquire a 10% equity stake in ESPN in exchange for Disney and ESPN acquiring NFL Network and the rights to distribute NFL RedZone. Thanks to the deal, all NFL Network preseason game broadcasts are available on the ESPN app for subscribers of ESPN Unlimited—the company’s direct-to-consumer streamer product.
Here were the average audiences for NFL Network’s six Week 1 preseason games:
