Last night’s season premiere of Sunday Night Football was welcomed by the American people with a big overnight rating. Pittsburgh-Denver which marked the return of Peyton Manning to the NFL after a year’s absence pulled a big 18.0 rating which is the highest overnight number for a primetime game on NBC since the network got the Sunday Night Football contract.
The previous high was a 17.7 for the 2010 NFL Kickoff Game. It’s also the highest overnight rating for a primetime game dating back 15 years. Needless to say, last night’s game was up from last year’s first SNF game.
We have this blurb from NBC Sports. That’s an amazing rating for primetime football in this day and age.
18.0 overnight for PIT-DEN on #SNFonNBC last night is best for any primetime game ever on #NBC. Previous best 17.7 (Min-NO 2010 kickoff game)
18.0 overnight last night #SNFonNBC is best for any primetime game in 15 years (Den-SF, 19.3 on 12/15/97)
Denver market drew 44.2/67 rating/share, best for Denver for an NFL regular season game on any net since 9/22/03 (44.5/61 for Oak-Den).
18.0/29 overnight rating/share is up 7% from last year’s first #SNFonNBC game (Dallas-NYJ, 16.9/27).
We’ll get final numbers later today.
