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One of the most anticipated regular season games in league history is likely to generate an following that rivals some of the biggest numbers generated by a non-playoff NFL game in decades.
The climax, by all appearances and indications, came on December 2, 1985, when 41 million people tuned in to watch the previously undefeated Bears get beaten by the Dolphins on a Monday night. Five years later, the Giants and 49ers drew $ 39 million for a late-season Monday night game that ended up being a preview of this season’s NFC Championship.
More recently, the 2007 Patriots-Giants Week 17 game, which was supposed to be exclusive to the NFL Network but also landed on NBC and CBS because the Patriots were trying to cap off a perfect season, had an average audience of 34 ,5 millions.
Will Tom Brady’s return to New England create similar historical numbers? NFL ratings are up this year (not bad, given the many people who have vowed never to watch again), but television viewing and ownership are down. The fact that the regular season opener between Dallas and Tampa Bay (26.0 million) came close 5.2% to Thursday’s 2015 opener between the Steelers and the Patriots (27.4 million) becomes more impressive when you consider that the HUT (Households Using TVs) rating for the 2021 game, it was 30% lower than the HUT rating for the game played six years earlier.
Sunday night’s game will surely attract more than Week 1’s Cowboys-Bucs contest. Will it compete with the 2007 Pats-Giants, the 1990 Giants-49ers or even the 1985 Bears-Dolphins? This will be one of the most interesting questions to ask yourself on Monday, as we digest everything that happens during those three or four hours on Sunday night, when a huge number of serious and casual football fans stop whatever they want. do to see what Brady does when he first returns to where he spent 20 years and won six championships.
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