An audience of more than 27 million people watched the Christmas Day clash between the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers on “Monday Night Football,” ESPN announced Tuesday, setting a Ravens regular-season record for viewership.
What’s believed to be the Ravens’ previous record for single-game viewership came in September 2013, when Baltimore opened its Super Bowl defense against the Denver Broncos with a 49-27 loss on the road. According to the NFL, 25.1 million people tuned in on TV and digital for that game.
No other Ravens game during the regular season has eclipsed 23 million viewers, according to the league.
ESPN said 27.2 million viewers watched the clash between the 11-3 teams, which was carried on ABC, ESPN+ and ESPN Deportes, making it the second most-watched “Monday Night Football” since the 1996 season. Baltimore rolled to a 33-19 win over the 49ers on Monday night, moving to a 12-3 record.
The most-watched game was less than a month ago, a Week 11 matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles that drew a little more than 29 million viewers.
The NFL has had success in recent years drawing big audiences on Christmas Day. In 2022, nearly 26 million viewers tuned in to Fox for an early-afternoon game between the Green Bay Packers and Miami Dolphins. A year before that, a Packers-Cleveland Browns game carried by Fox and the NFL Network drew 28.6 million viewers.
The most-watched game in Ravens’ history is Super Bowl XLVII in 2013, which averaged 111.4 million viewers. The Ravens defeated the 49ers 34-31 in that game to win their second NFL championship.
