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Football has always been a major American pastime, and as the ease of access to different football streaming services grows, we can expect Sunday night football viewing figures to rise over the next decade. Specifically, the NFL in particular has done well with maintaining and acquiring new viewership, helping lead to the overall massive success of the league.
Sunday Night Football gets extremely popular, as that’s when most of the highest-profile games are broadcast. You won’t be surprised to hear that multiple games have broken into the 25+ million figures for viewership, and here we are going to give you some more details about the five most-viewed SNF games of all-time.
The tough NFC East showdown between the 2018 Super Bowl Champions of the Philadelphia Eagles and the long-rooted franchise of the Dallas Cowboys amassed a total of 26.5 million viewers, a truly remarkable feat for this day and age. While we can’t pinpoint anything, in particular, leading up to the hype around this game, the Cowboys coach previously missed two days during the week due to an emergency appendectomy, and likely the coming showdown between Jalen Hurts and Dak Prescott made for a hyped-up viewing experience drawing in the attention of many fans.
The October 1st match was held in 2023 between the defending Super Bowl Champions of Kansas City Chiefs vs. the struggling New York Jets. Maholmes, Kelsey, and friends can be largely credited with pulling in over 26.7 million live viewers, especially considering both Aaron Rodgers and Taylor Swift were seen spectating from the stands. In the end, this game was a close call ending 23-20 in favor of the defending champions, but the emotional rollercoaster of a game could be part of the reason why this Sunday night football matchup had some of the highest viewing figures ever.
Back in the Cowboys era of Tony Romo in September of 2015, the season-opening game between the Giants and Cowboys accumulated around 26.8 million viewers. By the fourth quarter, the Cowboys were down 10 points before a clutch QB Tony Romo threw a pair of touchdowns to Jason Witten with just 7 seconds left on the clock. Based on how the game went, it’s easy to see why so many fans tuned into this match as anyone loves a good game with lots of ups and downs before witnessing an epic last-second comeback.
If you’re a New England Patriots fan with a heavy connection to Tom Brady, then you’ve tuned into this game. Totaling over 28.5 million live onlookers, this 2021 matchup between the Buccaneers and Patriots would go down as one of the most watched Sunday night football matches in the history of the NFL. Looking back at this game, it was the first time Tom Brady was traded to a different team of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before facing off against his old legacy team. Lots of emotion was thrown around this game, especially related to the now-defected Tom Brady, who helped the Buccaneers to a 19-17 victory over his old team.
Currently, the Sunday Night football match with the highest viewing figures in the history of the NFL is the 2012 game between the then-Washington Redskins (now Commanders) and Dallas Cowboys. Amassing over 30.3 million viewers over a decade ago, Washington fans banded together to witness their team play the first winter-time playoff game in over five years. The excitement over Washington’s participation in an NFC playoff match, its first in over 5 years, may have been a contributing factor to that record audience. Add in the team that America loves and hates the most – the Dallas Cowboys – and you get record-breaking TV viewing numbers for an SNF game.
(And just in case you are wondering, Washington won by 28 points to 18.)
Liam has been a major sports fan and soccer player for over a decade, with a particular focus on major top-level soccer leagues, including the EPL, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and MLS. He has written numerous promotional articles for various top sportsbooks and continues to publish historical and factual sports articles covering the NFL, MLS, NHL, MLB, EPL and more.