Last night’s Washington Redskins-Dallas Cowboys earned a 16.6 overnight rating and a 26 share, the highest rating for NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” since returning to the network in 2006.
The game surpassed the opening of Cowboys Stadium last year (16.5/27) and Philadelphia-New England in 2007 (15.6/24), when the Patriots went 16-0 in the regular season.
If you combine the ratings from last Thursday’s NFL Kickoff game, the two-game overnight average of 17.1/27 is the highest since the NFL started the Thursday/Sunday opening week format.
Ratings were also up 26 percent (13.6/23) over last year’s Sunday night season opener between Chicago and Green Bay.
Dating back to 1997, the only primetime NFL broadcast to have a higher overnight rating than Redskins-Cowboys was last Thursday’s Saints-Vikings game, which drew a 17.7/28.