VAB Analysis: NFL Audiences Are Growing, with Broadcast TV Telecasts Remaining the Most-Watched

—Report Examines the Viewing Behaviors that Fueled Audience Growth in 2025 Season—

NEW YORK, Feb. 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The 2025 NFL season reinforced primetime football as one of Premium Video’s most powerful environments, delivering massive viewership, real-time engagement and high-impact audiences across streaming and linear TV. That backdrop frames the analysis in VAB’s new report, What’s the Spread? Examining Key Stats on Audience Growth From the 2025 NFL Season.

As Thursday Night Football on Prime Video, Sunday Night Football on NBC and Monday Night Football across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC all continued to grow, NFL primetime served as a reliable engine for scale, with divisional rivalries and tightly contested matchups consistently delivering the biggest audience lifts, with strong co-viewing and out-of-home viewership adding significant incremental reach.

The report’s findings draw from VAB’s viewership analysis based on the full 2025 season schedule across the three signature primetime series versus the prior season. Among those findings:

Live NFL games are watched in real-time, reinforcing it as an effective environment that delivers unmatched immediacy and ad impact.
Divisional matchups increase viewership by double-digits as fans are more likely to flock towards long-standing, established rivalries.
Primetime NFL games deliver high-value audiences in key buying demos across multiscreen TV platforms.
Out-of-home viewership contributes double-digit lifts in total audience, especially among the highly elusive P18-34 demographic.
Broadcast TV telecasts, led by late-Sunday afternoon timeslot, continue to be the most watched NFL games throughout the season.

“The NFL continues to deliver outsized, real-time impact, with audiences up year-over-year across all three signature primetime series, reinforcing live football as one of Premium Video’s strongest drivers of reach and engagement,” said Jason Wiese, EVP, Strategic Insights & Measurement, VAB. “Divisional rivalries and many tightly contested games were key drivers of higher audience ratings across the three signature primetime series. Out-of-home viewing, which skews towards younger demographics, is also a critical component of audience growth that adds substantial reach for live sporting events, especially during key holiday periods.”

The analysis also highlights how Nielsen’s Big Data Plus Panel measurement captures NFL total P2+ audience viewership in comparison to the legacy Panel Only measurement that was the currency-of-record in past years.

Read the report—which includes in-depth data, key takeaways and cited sources—here.

ABOUT VAB
The Video Advertising Bureau (VAB)—whose members include premium multiscreen TV providers and distributors, alongside a broader community of influential media companies—plays a dual role in the video advertising industry. VAB is fiercely advocating for the changes that bring about a more innovative and transparent marketplace. VAB also provides the insights and thought leadership that enable marketers to develop business-driving marketing strategies. Visit VAB online and access its continuously growing content library at thevab.com.

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