The NFL can gather a live audience like nothing else. Even when a game starts at 9:30 a.m. in New York — and 6:30 a.m. in L.A.
Sunday’s Vikings-Steelers game from Dublin generated the second-biggest audience for any international game on NFL Network. Per the league, an average audience of 7.9 million watched the game. The crowded ballooned to more than nine million from 12:30 p.m. ET until the game ended.
It finishes behind only the Dolphins-Chiefs game played two years ago in Germany. That game had an audience of 9.2 million.
Sunday morning football will happen more and more often, as the NFL takes more and more regular-season contests to Europe. Initially, the London games landed in the cluster of 1:00 p.m. ET kickoffs. Now, the European games routinely start in the Sunday morning standalone window.
It’ll happen again on Sunday, when the Vikings face the Browns in London’s Tottenham Hotspur stadium. The following Sunday, from the same venue, the Broncos and Jets get the early kickoff. Rams-Jaguars wrap the 2025 slate of Sunday morning games in Week 7 at Wembley Stadium in London. Then, four weeks later, the Commanders and Dolphins will square off in Barcelona, Spain.
As the NFL pushes for 16 international games per year, 9:30 a.m. ET will become a more and more regular window. Which if nothing else will give Homer Simpson something to watch while skipping church and eating his patented, space-age, out-of-this-world moon waffles.
