STAMFORD, Conn. — STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) – Kansas City’s thrilling 27-20 win over Baltimore on Thursday night was the most-watched NFL Kickoff game since its inception in 2002.
The game had a total audience average of 28.9 million, higher than the 27.6 million that saw the New England Patriots beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 2015 opener on NBC. It wasn’t until 2016 that streaming was added to the viewing figures.
It was a 5% increase from the 27.5 million who saw Detroit beat Kansas City in the opener last year.
Despite the start of the game being delayed 20 minutes due to a lightning storm, NBC averaged 24.3 million viewers, peaking at 33 million viewers in the second quarter (9:30-9:45 p.m. EDT), according to Nielsen.
It also drew a 37 share on NBC, which is the largest for any regular-season game since it began broadcasting NFL prime time games in 2006. A share is the percentage of all television sets that are in use at a given time and are watching a program.
According to Adobe Analytics, streaming on the Peacock, NBC and NFL digital platforms averaged 4.6 million.
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