Nearly 24 million people watched the San Francisco 49ers defeat the Dallas Cowboys during NBC’s telecast of “Sunday Night Football” this past weekend, according to data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics disclosed by NBC Sports this week.
On Monday, NBC said the game was the most-watched National Football League (NFL) Week 8 match-up “on record.” The 23.9 million people who watched some or all of the game included viewership on NBC’s broadcast channel, the streaming platform Peacock and NBC Sports apps for phones, tablets, TVs and web browsers. It also included viewership on NFL Plus, the direct-to-consumer streaming service operated by the NFL itself, which offers access to locally-televised games in a user’s home area.
The game peaked during the second quarter, when 26.4 million people tuned in to watch the 49ers and the Cowboys between 9:15 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Eastern Time (6:15 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Pacific Time), the network said. The network logged the highest share of viewers in the Dallas, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Antonio and Kansas City markets, according to Nielsen.
The match-up topped last season’s Week 8 game between the Chicago Bears and the Los Angeles Chargers by 43 percent, NBC said.
The game helped balance out the win-loss column for the 49ers, who have won 50 percent of all games played this season. Their win was overshadowed by a stunt in which star defensive end Nick Bosa crashed a post-game TV interview with quarterback Brock Purdy, tight end George Kittle and running back Isaac Guerendo while sporting a “Make America Great Again” hat, signaling his support for the former president-turned-convicted felon heading into Election Day. (NBC initially edited out the incident in the social media version of their interview, only to repost the interview early Monday morning that included the stunt.)
At a press conference after the stunt, Bosa refused to comment on the matter. The San Francisco Chronicle’s alternative publication SF Gate later said Bosa likely violated the NFL’s rule regarding political messaging; that rule prohibits a player who is “visible to the stadium and television audience” from “wearing, displaying, or otherwise conveying personal messages either in writing or illustration, unless such message has been approved in advance by the League office,” which includes the period before the game starts and after it concludes.
“The League will not grant permission for any club or player to wear, display, or otherwise convey messages, through helmet decals, arm bands, jersey patches, mouthpieces, or other items affixed to game uniforms or equipment, which relate to political activities or causes, other non-football events, causes or campaigns, or charitable causes or campaigns,” the NFL’s rule says.
It was not clear if the NFL gave Bosa permission to wear the hat. Social media commentators speculated that NBC “blurred” the hat, which involved gold lettering on a white background. The network did not have time to blur the hat before it went out on television, a network source told The Desk late Sunday evening, but might have appeared pixelated on some TV channels and cable systems due to the various digital compression technologies that some affiliates and platforms use.
