So it turns out when you get a Super Bowl rematch in Week 2 between two of the NFL’s premier teams, fans are going to tune in.
An average of 33.8 million viewers tuned into Fox’s Philadelphia Eagles-Kansas City Chiefs telecast on Sunday, with the network summarizing its numbers as its “best-ever regular season Sunday telecast.” Every other game in NFL history that has posted a higher viewership was either a Thanksgiving game, a “Monday Night Football” game or the playoffs.
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Fox also touted the game as the most-watched Week 2 NFL telecast on record and the most-watched September/October game ever, with a 21% increase over last year’s window.
If you ignore Thanksgiving games, the only regular-season games to see higher numbers were two MNF games: a 1990 game between the Lawrence Taylor New York Giants and Joe Montana San Francisco 49ers and the Miami Dolphins handing the 1985 Chicago Bears their only loss.
Unsurprisingly, Eagles-Chiefs delivered monster ratings for Fox and the NFL. (AP Photo/Reed Hoffmann)
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
The numbers of Sunday further cement the NFL as being conspicuously immune to the ratings erosion affecting nearly every other major league and television property in the industry, though the league also got a best-case scenario with Eagles-Chiefs.
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Not only was the game much-anticipated, while featuring a tight end who recently got engaged to the biggest pop star on Earth, it was close throughout and even included some shenanigans with the most controversial play in the NFL.
The Eagles beat the Chiefs 20-17, pushing Kansas City to its first 0-2 record of the Patrick Mahomes era.
