In 2023, the Philadelphia Eagles are still arguably the most popular team in the NFL.
The Bills-Eagles instant classic scored a 15.2 rating and averaged 30.90 million viewers on CBS on Sunday afternoon, making it the highest-rated game of the NFL season and the third-most-watched game of the season, trailing only the first two Thanksgiving games.
It was CBS’s most-watched national game window since a Patriots-Colts matchup in 2007 (33.82M viewers), and it represented a 32% increase over the previous year’s comparable window. It was also the first national window outside of Thanksgiving to surpass the 30 million mark since 2014.
CBS is having its best season since it resumed broadcasting NFL games in 1998, averaging 19.7 million viewers.
But Fox is the biggest beneficiary of the Eagles’ massive popularity this season.
The broadcast of the Jets’ upset win over the Eagles in October averaged 26.09 million viewers, followed by Philadelphia’s win over Dallas in November, which averaged 27.14 million — both games were the most-watched on linear television at their respective points in the season.
The Eagles also appeared in Super Bowl LVII on Fox, which they lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in front of an average of 113 million viewers and as many as 200 million when viewing party sizes and streaming were taken into account.
ESPN has reaped the benefits of Philly fever as well, with the recent Super Bowl rematch on “Monday Night Football” averaging 29 million viewers.
