TheNFLregular season is finally back to breathe some life into linear television.
ThatSunday Night Footballbroadcast drew 21.8M viewers, which is down a few million fromlast years audienceof around 24M.
The 21.4M viewers delivered the biggest Week 1 audience for the data pipe since 2015.
Patrick Mahomes #15 of the Kansas City Chiefs scrambles for yardage away from Charles Harris #53 of the Detroit Lions & Xavier Gipson #82 of the New York JetsGetty
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ABCis also taking home a win for its Week 1Monday Night Footballaudience.
That leaves three additional games both ofFoxs Sunday matchups, as well as CBS early kickoff.
All three drew much smaller audiences than Week 1 last year, though all were still above 10M.
Even with some deflated audiences, the networks are surely excited to have pro football back on their schedules.
And its not like ratings were looking that great before the strikes, either.
Declining linear ratings over the past several years were already pushing networks toward live sports and reality series.
