The Week 7 game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New Orleans Saints, played early Sunday morning from Paris, pulled in a massive 7.7 million viewers, per ESPN. That’s a huge number for a 9:30 a.m. ET kickoff, even if it doesn’t quite hit the same heights as typical Sunday afternoon or evening matchups.
Early Morning Football: A Double-Edged Sword
This Parisian clash marked the fourth consecutive Sunday morning international game, and it wasn’t just a fluke. This particular game actually snagged the third-highest audience ever for an international game aired on NFL Network. Zooming out, the four European games played in October, with three in London and one in France, averaged a strong 7.1 million viewers on NFLN. Look, the NFL is clearly onto something here. These early morning games are crushing everything else on TV at that time, proving there’s a serious appetite for football no matter the hour or the continent.
The Unseen Cost of International Expansion
Here’s where it gets interesting, and maybe a little concerning. While these games are bringing in eyeballs, they are also doing some serious damage to the traditional Sunday morning pregame shows. Think about it: when a game kicks off at 9:30 a.m. ET, those noon ET to 1:00 p.m. ET pregame shows suddenly feel irrelevant for a huge chunk of the viewing public. Mike Florio points out that as the NFL leans into this international push, potentially staging up to 16 international games per year, networks might have to rethink their entire Sunday morning strategy. While the networks still need studio presence for updates and halftimes for the afternoon games, the audiences for those traditional pregame shows are going to get smaller and smaller. It’s a fascinating dilemma: global reach versus established broadcast traditions.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Pro Football Talk.
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