Saints' win vs. Vikings draws best TV rating ever for NFL's opening night game

Sep 10, 2010

Saints' win vs. Vikings draws best TV rating ever for NFL's opening night game

09:25 AM

The NFL started the 2010 regular season in the same spot in the same spot it ended last season -- with TV viewership reaching record levels.
NBC's telecast of the New Orleans Saints' 14-9 win against the Minnesota Vikings drew a 17.7 overnight rating. That translates to 17.7% of viewers in 56 urban TV markets that are measured for overnight ratings.
The Vikings-Saints overnight is the highest for an NFL primetime regular-season game in 13 years and the top overnight rating ever for an opening night game ever.
The NFL has started its season on Thursday night since 2002.
The game drew a 28 share which translates into 28% of all TV households with televisions on at the time.
It continued a trend of boffo TV viewership for the NFL.
An average of more than 16 million viewers watched each regular-season game last season, the highest level since 1990. And the Saints' win in Super Bowl XLIV became the most-watched TV show of all time.
It's good news for the NFL, but also feeds the growing concern around the league about the contrast between the luxurious, tech-savvy home-viewing environment and the declining attendance at NFL stadiums


http://content.usatoday.com/communities/thehuddle/post/2010/09/saints-win-vs-vikings-draws-best-tv-rating-ever-for-nfls-opening-night-game/1

- The Reason we study sport is a indicated in the article above. The opening game of the NFL season drew a record audience on NBC and we discussed in class just a week earlier how millions of people discuss sports each and every day. In class we talked about how sports are a social phenomena and this is shown clearly here as stated by the above numbers just how popular sports have become. Another valid point from class is how 1/4 of the USA Today covers sports and this is clearly shown from this USA Today article.  Each day there is a different sporting event on television that is watched studied and analyzed in great length, this is clearly shown by the first game of the 2010 NFL season as it was the most watched NFL regular season game in 12 years.