Nearly two times the audience size watched the overtime thriller between the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams over postseason Major League Baseball.
Amazon announced Monday that “Thursday Night Football” drew an average audience of 14.79 million viewers, according to Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel.
Viewership, which peaked at 17.01 million viewers, is more than 20% higher than last year’s Week 5 game (12.3M, Bucs-Falcons) and nearly double the viewership of Thursday’s second most-watched event â Boston Red Sox vs. New York Yankees in the wild-card finale from The Bronx (7.4M, ESPN).
‘TNF’ Drawing a Younger Audience
49ers-Rams also registered impressive marks across every major demographic, according to Nielsen.
- Within the P18-34 demo, TNF averaged 2.88M viewers on Thursday, and is now averaging 3.24M in the demo, which is highest among all NFL full-season packages.
- Within the P18-49 demo, TNF averaged 6.97M viewers, up +15% vs. last year’s comparable game (6.07M).
- Within the P25-54 demo, TNF averaged 7.54M viewers, up +16% vs. last year’s comparable game (6.52M).
- Within the P55+ demo, TNF averaged 5.33M viewers, up +22% vs. last year’s comparable game (4.38M).
Through the first quarter of the season, Amazon is averaging 15.72M viewers, which is the best start for “Thursday Night Football” in a decade.
So far this year, Amazon viewership has a median age of 47.5, which is nearly eight years younger than audiences watching the NFL on linear networks (55.3).
Niners Were Led by Mac Jones and Kendrick Bourne
The Niners, led by Mac Jones and Kendrick Bourne, held on to win in overtime, 26-23, as coach Kyle Shanahan emerged as an early season candidate for coach of the year.
The 49ers (4-1) entered the game without Brock Purdy, Nick Bosa, George Kittle, or their top three wide receivers, but pulled off an impressive victory to remain undefeated in the NFC West.
âWe talked about how tough we had to be for four quarters,â Jones said postgame. âIt came down to who was going to be the toughest team, and I think it was us.â
Despite a leg injury, Jones passed for 342 yards and two touchdowns, helping the 49ers score on their first two possessions and extend the lead to 20-7 late in the third.
Eddy Piñeiro drilled a 41-yard field goal in overtime, but San Francisco stuffed Kyren Williams on fourth down with 3:36 left to secure the win.
The wild fourth quarter included Piñeiroâs 59-yard field goal to break the tie with 2:52 remaining, Williamsâ fumble at the goal line, and Joshua Kartyâs 48-yard kick that pulled the Rams (3-2) even with just two seconds left.
Niners Make Huge Stop in Overtime
The Rams kicked off overtime by giving San Francisco the ball, and Jones guided a drive that set up Piñeiroâs fourth field goal with 5:51 remaining. Los Angeles then advanced to the 49ersâ 11-yard line, where coach Sean McVay went for it on fourth-and-1 â opting for a run he quickly regretted.
âIâm pretty sick right now,â McVay said postgame. âIâm sick of the spot that I put our group in to end the game, but these are the tough beats that youâve got to be able to learn from and move forward.â
On the other hand, Shanahan was thrilled with his teamâs performance, which included career highs of 10 catches and 142 yards for Bourne.
âThey were unbelievable,â he said. âWe talked about how long this game was going to be, how focused we had to be, how competitive we had to be for the entire time. Started out great, but itâs a good team. They tightened it up. Got real tight, then lost a number of dudes. We had to overcome losing two D-linemen in that game, and the D-line is still stepping it up big. That was a huge character win.â
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