Despite a decline in television ratings over the last two years, the NFL has bounced back and experienced a 5 percent increase in TV viewership this season, according to a report by ESPN.
In the report, it shows that the average game had 15.8 million viewers compared to 14.9 million in 2017. This is still far off from where the league was just two or three years ago. In 2015, the league was averaging 17.9 million viewers a game and in 2016 that number dropped off to 16.5 million.
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As detailed by ESPN, 46 of the 50 biggest television broadcasts since the start of the season were NFL games.
Streaming has also been a factor for the decrease in TV viewership. There was a 86 percent increase in streaming viewership with 13 Thursday night football games streaming on Amazon Prime.
ESPN said analysts believe the success of the big market teams like Dallas and both Los Angeles teams are a contributing factor to why more people tuned into the NFL this year.