Netflix NFL Opener In Australia Draws 18.5M Viewers, Extending League’s Muted Start To Season

Netflix drew an average audience of 18.5 million for its live coverage of the first NFL game played in Australia, according to Nielsen.

The viewership of the San Francisco 49ers-L.A. Rams game played in Melbourne equaled that of a game streamed last year from Brazil by YouTube. While retaining audience counts for plenty in today’s media environment, for a juggernaut like the NFL it extends what has been a subdued start to the regular season. The league’s opening-night game last Wednesday on NBC and Peacock fell 11% from last year, averaging 25.1 million viewers.

The NFL has been leaning into its activities outside the U.S. in recent years, with global expansion one of the notable media themes heading into 2026.

Globally, the Rams-49ers game pulled in 21.7 million viewers across Netflix’s full scope of 200-plus countries and territories, the NFL said. The non-U.S. audience of 3.2 million for the Australia game marked an improvement over the 1.2 million overseas viewers tuning into the YouTube game.

Last year, the streaming game was played on a Friday, compared with Thursday this year. The timing of the season kickoff on Wednesday this year, a quirk of the schedule that comes up every now and then, may have contributed to the ratings dip compared with the usual Thursday night kickoff.

Matchups also played a role in the ratings drop, with the perennially popular Dallas Cowboys taking on the Philadelphia Eagles on NBC a year ago, compared with this year’s Seattle Seahawks-New England Patriots contest. Although this year was a Super Bowl rematch, last February’s lopsided but workmanlike win by Seattle in the Super Bowl is not fondly recalled by even casual football fans.

Ratings for Sunday’s main kickoff to the usual full slate of NFL games, including a marquee prime time matchup between the Cowboys and the New York Giants, have not yet been released. Also to be determined is the tune in for the debut of Monday Night Football, a Taylor Swift-inflected blowout win for the Kansas City Chiefs over the Denver Broncos.

More than 340 social impressions and 14.5 million engagements across Netflix and NFL social channels were registered by the 49ers-Rams game, the NFL said. The league noted that it ranks among the most-streamed Thursday NFL games in prime time. Amazon took over exclusive carriage of Thursday night games in 2022.

A younger audience also tuned in for the Netflix game, the NFL noted. It averaged 4 million viewers between the ages of 18 and 34, marking the highest level in that demo for a streamed game outside of Christmas. Netflix started airing a Christmas Day doubleheader in 2024, making the broadcasts a centerpiece of the company’s push into advertising, which is now in its fifth year.