Giants-Cowboys Is Sunday Night Football's Largest Audience Ever

It's been awhile since I've put up a ratings post, mainly because nothing's jumped out at me, but this one is worth noting. The Giants-Cowboys game this last Sunday night, is officially SNF's largest broadcast, and the largest primetime audience since 1997. Via SBD....

NBC earned a 15.1 final Nielsen rating and 24.817 million viewers for its "SNF" telecast featuring Giants-Cowboys from 8:31-11:50pm ET, marking the most-viewed "SNF" telecast ever. The first regular-season game ever at Cowboys Stadium also marked the most-watched NFL regular-season primetime game since Broncos-49ers earned 27 million viewers in December '97. Compared to the same week last year, Giants-Cowboys was up 39.8% and 39.2%, respectively, from a 10.8 rating and 17.834 million viewers for Steelers-Browns. The Giants-Cowboys audience was also up 84.2% over the Emmy Awards on CBS (13.471 million viewers). "SNF" was the No. 1 program of the week among broadcast networks in HHs and viewers.

While that certainly is amazing, the NFL probably isn't done yet, and could end up making numbers like it did in the 80s & 90s, this season. Week three has Atlanta at New England on FOX, Indy at Arizona on Sunday Night and the Cowboys Panthers on Monday Night. Week Four then has last year's huge matchup of the Ravens and Pats, as well as the Jets at Saints, and Brett Favre's return to Green Bay. We'll likely see record after record being broken this season.

Giants-Cowboys Draws Best NFL Primetime Audience Since '97