Improved Thursday Night Football TV Ratings Silence Critics

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The 2018 slate of NFL games on Thursday were a big hit, both on the field and when tallying Thursday Night Football TV ratings.

For some NFL diehards, Thursday Night Football is like an appetizer for the upcoming weekend. Others, like those who work in retail or the restaurant business, cherish the game even more because it’s one of the few they can watch from start to finish. Then there’s a group (including some players) that cannot stand NFL games on weekdays.

If you’re one of those that are pro-Thursday Night Football, rest easy because the brand is growing and the matchups keep getting better. This season, the first with Fox at the controls, just wrapped up with a wonderful AFC West showdown that came down to the final play and delivered a huge TV rating. It was so big that, according to Sports Media Watch, it ranks 13th-highest out of all 13 seasons of Thursday Night Football and second-highest since 2016 (behind the record-setting Saints-Cowboys TNF game from a few weeks ago).

Between Fox and the NFL Network, SMW reported a 10.5 rating & 17.4 million viewers for the Week 15 Thursday Night Chargers-Chiefs game. By comparison, last year’s Week 15 TNF game finished with a 6.5 rating & 10.6 million viewers.

From a season standpoint, the New York Post reported today that “this season’s Thursday night schedule’s ratings improved 7 percent over the last year.” In the same Sports Media Watch report, they had 2018’s increase over last year at 4 percent.

Many said fans were bailing on the NFL altogether, with Thursday Night Football regularly getting tagged as overkill. This season, however, has done a lot to change those thoughts. There’s proof in the numbers, sure, but a bigger reason is the state of the game and players. Points are being scored in droves, young QBs are turning into stars everywhere, and the NFL seems fun again. There are multiple things that factored into the dip in TV ratings (ie: national anthem controversy; bankable stars like Tony Romo and Peyton Manning retiring) but it’s legitimately correcting itself and fans should be confident going forward.

Fox has the Thursday Night Football rights until 2022 after inking a five-year, $3.3 billion deal this offseason.