Sunday Night Football scores record rating

The NFL is back, and hit NBC’s best overnight rating for a regular season game.

Sunday Night Football (Steelers vs. Broncos) had an 18.0 rating, and a 9.8 rating among adults 18-49, which was three percent higher than last year’s opener’s fast national ratings. It is on track to eclipse last year’s final 10.7 rating.

After an hour and a half of “Football Night in America,” the network averages a strong 7.6 rating among adults 18-49, and 20.1 million viewers for the night.

Fox’s NFL coverage ran over and inflated the network’s average, a 3.9 ratings for adults 18-49 and 9.6 million viewers, for its animation reruns block.

CBS’ primetime lineup ratings were also slightly skewed thanks to a little more than a half hour of U.S. Open overrun. According to fast affiliate ratings, “Big Brother” (which was the night’s only original broadcast), was up 11 percent with a 2.1 ratings in the adult demo. CBS averaged a 1.5 rating in that demo, and 7.2 million viewers.

ABC aired four back-to-back encores of “Once Upon A Time” while prepping for the fall season. The network averaged a 0.7 rating with adults 18-49, and 2.8 million viewers for the evening.

Denver defeated Pittsburgh 31-19 in the game.