Remember when there was a fear that NFL viewership was slipping? Neither do we. The Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears kicked off the NFL’s 100th season on Thursday, September 5 on NBC and averaged a whopping 9,028,670 OOH viewers, up +4.4% from last year’s season opener. Though not the most action-filled game, the OOH audience peaked at 8:54 PM with 11,106,805 OOH viewers proving that football continues to attract a strong audience in OOH locations.

The first NFL Sunday of the year was just as successful. On September 8, the regional games, broadcast on FOX and CBS, pulled in overwhelming numbers. The three 1 PM games on FOX combined to average 10.3MM OOH viewers while the three 4 PM games on the network combined to average 9.3MM OOH viewers. Over on CBS, the eye network’s trio of 1 PM games collectively averaged 8MM OOH viewers while the two 4 PM games combined to average 3.4MM OOH viewers. 

Sunday Night Football on NBC featuring the reigning Super Bowl champions, the New England Patriots, and the visiting Pittsburgh Steelers, averaged 4,782,903 OOH viewers and peaked at 9:23 PM with 6,740,740 OOH viewers. 

Monday Night Football featured two games per Week 1 tradition. The first game between the Texans and Saints averaged 6,979,530 OOH viewers and peaked at 8:37 with 8,546,480 OOH viewers. The second game between the Broncos and Raiders averaged 4,399,100 OOH viewers and peaked at 10:32 PM with 6,307,870 OOH viewers.

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Paul Lindstrom is the Head of Research and Analytics at Tunity, an out-of-home (OOH) data measurement company and consumer application which allows users to hear live audio from muted televisions directly through their mobile devices. In his role, Paul supports the creation of various data products, including Tunity's new analytics product, and helps set strategic vision and direction. Prior to Tunity, Paul spent over four decades at Nielsen, where he was responsible for designing and deploying innovative tools, systems, studies, and measurements for new media outlets. He also directed sales, operations, and strategy for Nielsen Strategic Media Research and Nielsen On Location. Paul is an innovation, research, and strategy executive with a successful track record in pioneering business development, product leadership, and research design. His combination of experience with media and custom research, location, and OOH measurements at Nielsen have allowed him to develop a new metric to capture OOH viewing insights based on Tunity’s traffic, tuning, and attention data.