With the full audience results from the NFL’s Week 1 now in, the league’s dominance is only growing stronger. 

Already enjoying bullish results from the league’s initial national games, the full slate of the NFL’s opening weekend averaged 21 million viewers across all platforms, representing the most-watched Week 1 on record, and up 12% from a year ago. The NFL’s total audience from Sept. 5–9 of 123 million was also the largest such viewership since 2019, and up slightly from the comparable 122 million to begin the 2023 season. 

The NFL’s year-over-year viewership comparison excludes the Sept. 6 Packers-Eagles game in Brazil, given the particularly unusual nature of that Friday night broadcast. But that contest still drew 14 million viewers for the exclusive airing on Peacock, the second-most-watched event on that service, pleasing executives for both the league and NBCUniversal. 

Within those overall figures, Sunday afternoon coverage on CBS and Fox averaged 18.4 million viewers per game, up 21% from last year and the highest opening week Sunday afternoon viewership since 2016. ESPN, meanwhile, averaged 20.4 million viewers across several Disney-owned networks for the Monday Night Football opener between the Jets and 49ers. That figure, though down 10% from last year’s record-setting figure and marred somewhat by the ongoing DirecTV-Disney carriage dispute, still marked the second-most-watched MNF season debut since 2006.

The overall lift for Week 1 gives the NFL some important early momentum as it faces potential headwinds ahead, including fewer MNF simulcasts on ABC and the upcoming U.S. presidential election. 

As the regional sports network business erodes, more entities around the industry are embracing solutions for team broadcasts that avoid the traditional RSN model altogether. 

Scripps Sports president Brian Lawlor said Tuesday at the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit in New York that he is actively looking to strike additional team deals based on over-the-air television, particularly in the wake of the ongoing bankruptcy of Diamond Sports Group. Such a sentiment builds upon local rights deals that the company has already signed with teams such as the NHL’s Golden Knights, Panthers, and Utah Hockey Club.

“The regional sports [network] business is a disaster. And we did not predict the bankruptcy of Diamond,” Lawlor said. “But what we said was, ‘That was a great business 10 years ago when regional sports networks reached 80% of the households in America.’ Today, in almost every market it’s less than 50%, and in some cases, it’s less than 40%. So to own a professional baseball team or hockey team or something in a market and to reach [only] 35% of your fans, that’s not a good business model. … So we believe that bringing these games to linear television, putting them over the air was going to be a great platform. And it turned out our timing was right.”

Lawlor is hardly alone. As that over-the-air broadcast trend expands, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred reiterated Tuesday that the league is actively exploring a more nationalized media model, somewhat similar to the NFL, that would be a radical departure from its current approach.

“We need a more national strategy,” Manfred said at an event in Los Angeles produced by CNBC and Boardroom. “We’re blessed with a huge amount of content: 2,430 games [per season]. Because of the amount of content, I think there will be some local component, but I think the strategy needs to be more national, and our reach needs to be more national.”

Those comments from Manfred closely follow ones he made in May, when he said that “there is a continuing conversation about a national media strategy, a national control of [team] rights.”

At roughly the same time Tuesday, Manfred’s counterpart at the NBA, Adam Silver, said that he, too, wanted to develop a more nationalized and broadcast-focused model for his league’s regional team broadcasts. That’s even after the NBA recently struck both its set of new national rights deals, and a separate agreement with DSG for at least the 2024–2025 season.

“You have sort of a broken RSN model and some broadcast exposure. I think what we’re going to be in the process of doing now is spending the next six months or so studying what the opportunity is,” Silver said. “I think we’ll emerge in a very good place, [but] I think we have a bit of a rocky transition. We have significantly lost revenue in the short term.”

Easier Said Than Done

Those regional rights fee reductions, at least for the next year or two, are increasingly common across multiple sports. Beyond that, reshaping the local TV model in sports also carries significant labor implications between leagues and players. The NFL, NBA, and NHL all operate in a salary cap model with a defined division of revenue in agreements with their respective players’ unions. 

While MLB does not have a salary cap, that league’s collective bargaining agreement with the MLB Players Association also has a variety of critical levers governing its economic system based on how revenue arrives and is then partially shared among teams.

“That’s obviously a complicated topic,” Manfred said in May about potentially moving to a different model. “It’s important to separate two issues. There’s [the process of how] MLB controls these rights and comes up with a program where they’re monetized. There’s an entirely separate issue as to how the revenue flows.”

The NWSL has faced quite a few abuse and sexual misconduct allegations since its inception, which reached a breaking point in 2022 after former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates published a report stating the league “failed to protect its players.”

The new collective bargaining agreement between the NWSL and NWSL Players Association includes more reforms, such as training programs for staffers. But an anonymous survey conducted by ESPN reveals all 14 NWSL general managers believe the culture changes have skewed too far to the side of the players.

“There’s a fear amongst staff about what you can say, what you can’t say, what you have to ask players’ permission for, what you don’t, if you’re going to get in trouble for this,” one GM told ESPN. “And that means, to me, it’s gone too far.”

General managers said there is concern among staffers about holding private meetings, even if it is to discuss soccer-related matters. The league is acknowledging the concerns of team front offices and aiming to provide resources to help define how to differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate behavior.

NWSLPA chief Meghann Burke told ESPN there is no evidence players have gained too much power amid the clear cultural changes.

“It is disingenuous to simultaneously agree that the league has been completely transformed and we’ve created a healthier, better work environment and culture, and to simultaneously claim that players have too much power, because you can’t have one without the other,” Burke said.

A Rosy Exterior

The in-house fissures in the NWSL have stained an otherwise historic season. The new CBA includes the abolishment of the draft that commissioner Jessica Berman called a move to “align with global standards.” The league’s model is akin to the European soccer model, though the NWSL is widely considered the best women’s professional soccer league in the world.

Last week, the NWSL set a record for total attendance in a season, passing the previous mark of 1.4 million. Should it maintain its average of close to 12,000 fans per game for the rest of the season, it would surpass the milestone of two million by the end of the year.

Valuations for NWSL teams continue to skyrocket, highlighted by the July sale of Angel City FC to Disney CEO Bob Iger and his wife, Willow Bay, for $250 million. That figure more than doubled the previous record sale of $120 million for the San Diego Wave in March.