NEW YORK - Pittsburgh's 13-10 overtime victory against Tennessee on Thursday night drew the biggest TV audience for the NFL's season opener in seven years.
The game, televised on NBC, scored a 13.8 overnight rating and a 23 share, beating the 2003 mark of 14.5 and equaling the share, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Those numbers were up 37 percent from the 2008 opener (Giants-Redskins, 10.1/17), which started early to allow coverage of the Republican Convention, and up 6 percent from 2007 (Colts-Saints, 13.0/21).
Overnight ratings measure the 55 largest TV markets in the United States, covering nearly 70 percent of the country. Each overnight rating point represents about 735,000 TV homes.
The rating is the percentage of all homes with TVs, whether or not they are in use. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.
