If there were any doubt about what viewers want, the numbers from the 2025 football season have made it clear: Americans want to watch their teams for free on local broadcast TV, accessible to all without barriers.
FOX delivered its best NFL regular season in a decade, averaging 19.6 million viewers and up 6% year over year. Its “America’s Game of the Week” topped that, averaging 25.3 million viewers. CBS set a new regular-season record with 21.3 million average viewers. And ABC notched its highest bowl game ratings in more than 12 years, with the Pop-Tarts and Citrus Bowls drawing more than 8 million viewers each. These strong ratings are a resounding endorsement of keeping live sports on broadcast television, free and accessible to all.
Rooting for our favorite sports teams is a shared American experience. During the holidays, FOX’s Thanksgiving Day broadcast in Detroit drew nearly 48 million viewers, the second-largest Thanksgiving NFL audience ever and the largest ever for the early window. Later that day, CBS aired the most-watched NFL regular-season game in history, when the Chiefs vs. Cowboys game averaged 57.2 million viewers. If those games had been exclusive to streaming platforms, tens of millions of fans – especially in rural areas with unreliable broadband access or households without expensive streaming packages – would have been shut out.
Watching your favorite games shouldn’t be hard. As platforms pile up and options splinter, fans want sports to be simple, affordable and easy for the whole household to access. They want to know where to tune in and keep watching together without extra fees or hassles.
Local stations are still the most reliable, inclusive and widely accessible way for fans to enjoy live sports for free. Sports fans are calling on Washington to stand with their local stations and keep the games on local channels – you can, too. Take action now to help keep live sports on broadcast TV.
