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Thursday night’s blowout win by Bills over Rams generates audience of 21 million

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The Rams celebrated their Super Bowl LVI banner pregame, but the Bills were the ones celebrating at the end of the night, after opening the season with a 31-10 win on the road.

A great matchup draws in viewers. A great game keeps them around.

Thursday night’s season-opening blowout of the Rams by the Bills generated an average audience of just over 21 million viewers, according to Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal.

That’s a drop of nearly 20 percent from last year’s viewership for the kickoff game between the Cowboys and Buccaneers, at 26 million.

Texans at Chiefs generated 21.6 million in 2020, and Packers at Bears drew 22.7 million in 2019.

Last night’s number is the lowest since 2018, when the Falcons and Eagles played before a TV audience of 19.6 million.

This year, the Cowboys and Buccaneers start the season again in prime time. It will be interesting to see whether the audience meets or surpasses last year’s number of 26 million.