The TV viewership data for the NFL’s preseason Hall of Fame Game opener between the Carolina Panthers and Arizona Cardinals revealed a staggering 7 million average viewers on NBC.
That viewership count comes from Nielsen-measured linear viewing combined with Adobe Analytics’ streaming data, per Sports Media Watch.
While 7 million pales in comparison to regular-season NFL games — those averaged 18.7 million viewers last season — it’s higher than any regular-season contest in the other U.S. major sports leagues.
USA TODAY compiled the two games with the highest TV viewership numbers for the MLB, NBA and NHL from their most recent or current seasons to compare with the Hall of Fame Game.
And this preseason NFL contest beat them all.
With 7 million average
viewers, the Hall of Fame Game topped the best-performing game of the subset, the NBA’s Christmas Day contest between the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder on ABC and ESPN. That game averaged 6.7 million viewers and was the most-watched regular season game of the 2025-26 NBA season.
Thus far in the 2026 season, the best MLB game was the New York Yankees taking on the Boston Red Sox on NBC’s Sunday Night Baseball in June. The longtime rivals drew 4 million viewers on average, eking out a July Sunday Night Baseball matchup between the Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers.
NHL is even further down the list — the February Stadium Series game between the Boston Bruins and Tampa Bay Lightning averaged 2.1 million.
But an otherwise meaningless NFL game in early August — featuring a quarterback battle between Carson Beck and Kenny Pickett ― beat them all.
It is worth noting that the Hall of Fame game doesn’t quite touch the best playoff games in other leagues; the highest viewership numbers for the NBA and MLB both cracked 20 million viewers in their last completed postseasons.
However, it still bests the average viewership: the 2026 NBA playoffs averaged 6.35 million per game, while the 2025 MLB postseason was slightly lower at 6.33 million. The NHL’s 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs averaged 1.8 million.
And so the NFL’s preseason opener not only tops the best regular-season NBA, MLB and NHL games, respectively, but also the average postseason viewership, too — illuminating how large the NFL’s viewership advantage is over the other major U.S. sports leagues.
Methodology: Viewership data for individual games comes from Sports Media Watch. The top two most-watched games in the 2025-26 NBA, 2025-26 NHL and 2026 MLB regular season were picked for comparison. The Yankees-Red Sox viewership counts an abbreviated TV window due to a golf tournament that ran over the start of the game.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: When it comes to TV, the NFL rules supreme — even in the preseason
