Kansas City’s exciting 27-20 win over Baltimore on Thursday night was the most-watched NFL Kickoff game since the event began in 2002.
The game drew an average of 28.9 million viewers, beating the 27.6 million who watched the 2015 opener between the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers on NBC. Streaming numbers were not included until 2016.
This was a 5% increase from last year’s opener, where 27.5 million people watched Detroit defeat Kansas City.
Even though the game was delayed by 20 minutes due to a storm with lightning, NBC averaged 24.3 million viewers, with the highest number reaching 33 million during the second quarter (9:30-9:45 p.m. EDT).
The game also achieved a 37 share on NBC, its highest for any regular-season game since NBC began broadcasting NFL prime-time games in 2006. A share represents the percentage of all TVs in use at that time watching the program.
Adobe Analytics reported that streaming on Peacock, NBC, and NFL digital platforms averaged 4.6 million viewers.
