Despite Chiefs’ struggles this season, no NFL team had better TV ratings
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- NFL released 2025 top broadcasts: Chiefs accounted for four of five.
- Chiefs’ Thanksgiving game set a regular-season record with 57.3M viewers.
- High viewership persisted despite Chiefs’ 6-11 record, confirming market draw.
Football is king in the United States, a fact supported by the NFL’s incredible television viewership numbers.
And no team gets people to watch football more than the Chiefs.
The NFL this week announced its five most-watched broadcasts of the 2025 season. Although the Chiefs stumbled to a 6-11 record, four of their games were included in that top 5.
No. 1 was the Chiefs’ Thanksgiving Day game against the Cowboys, which set a regular-season NFL record with 57.3 million viewers.
No. 3 was the Chiefs-Eagles game, which was the highest-rated non-holiday game of the season (33.8 million). No. 4: Chiefs-Bills (30.9 million), followed by the Chiefs-Broncos game (29.0 million) in Denver.
No other NFL team had two games in the top 5.
Step back and look at the entire year of 2025, and you’ll see 89 of the top 100 telecasts were NFL games, according to data collected by Sportico. The top 3 featured the Chiefs, who also had six of the top-15 highest-rated games.
The top-rated telecast that didn’t involve the NFL was a presidential address to Congress, which ranked eighth. The highest-rated sporting event other than the NFL was Game 7 of the World Series, which came in at No. 25.
See? Football is king.
All told, 17 Chiefs games were in the top-100 telecasts in 2025. The Cowboys, who have ceded the “America’s Team” moniker to the Chiefs, had 13 in the top 100.
1. Super Bowl LIX (127.7 million)
2. AFC Championship Game (57.4 million)
3. Chiefs-Cowboys (57.3 million)
12. Chiefs-Eagles game (33.8 million).
14. Chiefs-Bills (30.9 million)
15. Chiefs-Broncos game (29.0 million)
26. Chiefs-Lions “Sunday Night Football” game (27.3 million)
38. Chiefs-Giants “Sunday Night Football” game (25.3 million)
42. Chiefs-Colts game (24.3 million)
43. Chiefs-Texans “Sunday Night Football” game (24.2 million)
45. Chiefs-Ravens game (23.8 million)
49. Chiefs-Jaguars “Monday Night Football” game (22.3 million)
60. Chiefs-Broncos Christmas night game (21.1 million)
65. Chiefs-Broncos 2024 season finale (20.6 million)
83. Chiefs-Chargers in Brazil (18.5 million streamers on YouTube)
88. Chiefs-Commanders “Monday Night Football” game (17.9 million)
92. Chiefs-Raiders game in KC (17.8 million)
This story was originally published January 9, 2026 at 11:14 AM.
