The NFL Extends Its Stranglehold on the U.S. TV Business -- 93 of the Top 100 Most Watched Programming Events in 2023 Were Pro Football Games

Accumulating an average live TV audience of 28.5 million viewers across NBC and Peacock in November, the 99th Annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade ranked as the 23rd most watched TV show in the U.S. in 2023, according to Sports Business Journal, citing Nielsen data.

That was the only TV event ranked in the top 25 last year. The rest of the list was all NFL games, starting with the Super Bowl (114.3 million viewers, according to Nielsen). Seven of the top 10 highest rated shows were National Football League postseason games, per SBJ:

1. Super Bowl LVII: Chiefs-Eagles (114.3M)
2. AFC championship: Chiefs-Bengals (53.12M)
3. NFC championship: Eagles-49ers (47.5M)
4. NFC divisional: 49ers-Cowboys (45.65M)
5. NFL on Thanksgiving: Commanders-Cowboys (41.76M):
6. AFC divisional: Bengals-Bills (39.32M)
7. AFC divisional: Chiefs-Jaguars (34.3M)
8. NFL on Thanksgiving: Packers-Lions (33.7M)
9. NFC wild card: Giants-Vikings (33.21M)
10. NFL on Christmas Eve: Cowboys-Dolphins (31.52M)

Of the top 100 most watched shows last year, 92 of them were live NFL games. That usurped the previous all-time benchmark set in 2022, when 82 of the top 100 were NFL contests.

As Penske pub Sportico notes, the NFL continues to "swallow TV whole" more and more, occupying 75 of the top 100 slots in 2021 and 72 of them in 2020.

President Joe Biden's State of the Union speech back on Feb. 7 ranked at No. 37. And the Academy Awards came in at No. 63, according to SBJ.

Those were the only two other non-pigskin events to rank in the top 100, with the other three events being college football games.

Over the next decade, the NFL is guaranteed to receive $125.5 billion in TV rights money, a figure that could grow much higher if certain audience performance thresholds are met. (Forbes outlines that potential here.)

Somehow, that doesn't seem like enough money.