Army-Navy Game Delivers 7 Million Viewers; Lakers-Pacers NBA In-Season Tourney Final Draws Nearly 5 Million: The Week in Sports Ratings (Dec. 4-10)

R. Thomas Umstead
·1 min read
Bryson Daily #13 of the Army Black Knights runs for a short gain in the first quarter against the Navy Midshipmen at Gillette Stadium on December 9, 2023.
Bryson Daily #13 of the Army Black Knights runs for a short gain in the first quarter against the Navy Midshipmen at Gillette Stadium on December 9, 2023.

While NFL games continued to tackle the biggest audiences for live TV sports events last week, the NBA In-Season Tournament also scored with viewers.

NFL games represented the top five most-watched events for the week of December 4-10, led by CBS’s December 10 slate of late afternoon games which averaged 26.04 million viewers, according to Nielsen numbers published by SportsMedia Watch. 

NBC’s Philadelphia Eagles-Dallas Cowboys Sunday Night Football telecast finished second for the week with 24.17 million viewers, followed by Fox’s early window of Sunday NFL games, which drew 17.02 million viewers.

CBS’s December 9 Army-Navy game was the most watched college football game of the week, drawing 7.18 million viewers, an increase of 4% from last year’s contest.

The NBA's inaugural In-Season Tournament secured the top five spots on the non-football ratings chart, led by the December 9 Los Angeles Lakers-Indiana Pacers final on ABC, which drew 4.14 million viewers. Overall, the game drew the biggest audience for a non-Christmas regular season game since February 2018, according to SportsMedia Watch.