Brady’s return leads NBC to strong Sunday football ratings

By DAVID BAUDER
AP Media Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Tom Brady wins in the television ratings, too. The Tampa Bay quarterback’s return to his old haunts in New England led NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” to its best ratings in years. The Nielsen company said the game was watched by 26.7 million people on NBC, the biggest “Sunday Night Football” crowd since 2015. When you add in people who streamed the game, viewership reached 28 million, the best since 2012. Despite the competition, it was a strong week for the CBS newsmagazine “60 Minutes,” which led with a report from a Facebook whistleblower who revealed her identity for the first time.