TV ratings for the 2024 NFL regular season got tripped up just slightly compared to the year prior with one network in particular doing far worse than others.
According to the numbers released by Front Office Sports, the National Football League averaged 17.5 million viewers per regular season game in 2024, down from 17.9 million from the previous year (2.2 percent). The league saw a seven percent bump in viewership between 2022 and 2023.
With the average number of viewers dropping, most networks kept a steady pace with some even gaining viewers over the last two seasons. Amazon saw an 11 percent jump in viewers over 2023 and with the average number of viewers being 13.2 million. Netflix, another platform fresh into NFL streaming, earned 24 million viewers for its very first NFL broadcasts, a pair of games streamed on Christmas Day.
Correspondent at Breitbart News Warner Todd Huston said the worst of all the networks to carry NFL games this season was ESPN. Many people have cut their cable over the years, mainly going towards streaming their games and other events and leaving ESPN behind.
"ESPN did clock in as the biggest loser of the year," Huston said. "Even before the cable cutting trends really started, ESPN had fallen out of favor for a lot of people because of its politics."
The cable sports network lost 14 percent of viewers over the season and averaged 15 million per game. Their left-leaning politics have turned a lot of people off
"Sports fans just want sports," Huston added. "They don't really care about politics when they're watching sports."
Other networks down in viewership from 2023 are Fox at three percent, averaging 18.4 million viewers, and CBS losing one percent, with 19.2 million people watching per game.
NBC’s Sunday Night Football ended the season on a high note up one percent with an average of 21.6 million watchers.
Huston suggests for ESPN to get back to its glory days, they're going to have to be better online and in the streaming sector.
"They are making moves for that, getting into streaming, because cable is a thing of the past," he said.