For the 2025 NFL season, I had a spark of curiousity on how often I watch particular teams, so every week I tallied every team that I watched play until the end of the regular season. There’s no reason why I did this… I was just curious if my assumptions lined up to reality

Rules:

  • I have to actually watch the game. A radio broadcast does not count.
  • I have to watch a majority of the game. This allows for situations where I can turn the game of if there is a blowout, or if I arrive late to the game due to some other activity for instance.
  • I did give myself permission to multitask, such as play a handheld game or do some other hobby. I am still listening to the game and could look up at any time. In many times I did tune in if something significant happened in the game. Ultimately it is a judgment call on if I counted the game as “watched” or if I was too distracted for it to count.
  • I am not counting the 2026 playoffs. This would bias only towards the teams that actually made the playoffs and I would most likely watch these games anywaysa.

Before season assumptions:

  • I am a Baltimore Ravens fan, and they are my home team. They would get the most views during the season. This will also inflate the teams that play the Ravens as well, particularly the AFC North teams whom have to play the Ravens twice in a season.
  • I will watch prime-time games, and teams that are assumed to perform well prior to the season will get the most views since they will get the most prime time games
  • AFC and NFC West teams will get a significant amount of watch time due to their propensity to get the late afternoon spots in the broadcast schedule
  • AFC North teams would be watched more often, as the local Baltimore affiliate for CBS (which is set up to mostly air AFC road teams) would priority intra-divisional team matchups.
  • The next highest division would be the NFC East, as the four teams are close to Baltimore, and the FOX Baltimore affiliate would be likely to air them, particularly the Washington Commanders.

End-of-season Results (ordered by finish in division)

Conference Division Team Count
AFC North Pittsburgh 7
AFC North Baltimore 15
AFC North Cincinnati 4
AFC North Cleveland 3
AFC South Jacksonville 1
AFC South Houston 3
AFC South Indianapolis 1
AFC South Tennessee 0
AFC East New England 2
AFC East Buffalo 3
AFC East Miami 2
AFC East New York 2
AFC West Denver 1
AFC West Los Angeles 2
AFC West Kansas City 5
AFC West Las Vegas 1
NFC North Chicago 2
NFC North Green Bay 6
NFC North Minnesota 4
NFC North Detroit 4
NFC South Carolina 1
NFC South Tampa Bay 2
NFC South Atlanta 2
NFC South New Orleans 0
NFC East Philadelphia 3
NFC East Dallas 2
NFC East Washington 3
NFC East New York 2
NFC West Seattle 3
NFC West Los Angeles 3
NFC West San Francisco 3
NFC West Arizona 2

After season thoughts

  • The only teams I failed to watch this season were Tennessee and New Orleans. A lot of this is due to the game broadcast choices of the local CBS and Fox affiliates. Neither team had a Thursday night game on Prime Video, which I tend to watch with regularity.
  • Surprisingly, I watched more of the NFC North than the NFC East. This was due to a combination of interest in the teams, and what is chosen to be broadcast. The AFC North also played the NFC North in the intraconference matchup this season, so that helped.
  • I actually got Kansas City fatigue. It felt at the beginning of the season that KC was getting a primetime game every week, in addition to playing the Ravens in the early season. They were actually tied with the Ravens in “watch tally” after a few weeks. I partially got tired of watching them and partially did not want them to share a similar watch total with Baltimore, so I started to intentionally not watch them. Kansas City ended up having a bad season to their standards so this would have balanced itself out as the season went on.
  • Speaking of fatigue, I kind of got football fatigue as the season went on. I was also traveling a bit in December, so that would cost “watch tallies” for whatever teams my Baltimore affiliate CBS and FOX teams were airing those Sundays.
  • Somewhat surprised at the evenness of the spread, being around 2-3 watches for the season for a majority of teams. Some teams like Denver, New England, Jacksonville, and Chicago should have gotten more attention from me, but keep in mind at the beginning of the season they were not considered favorites to make the playoffs, more or less Super Bowl contenders

Final thoughts

Overall I think this was a fun season-long activity to do. I probably will not do it again, but I would certainly leave the door open to do so. My before-season assumptions would probably end up being the same for subsequent seasons too.