The most recent playoff matchup between Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes, which is developing into a rivalry like to that of Brady vs. Manning, attracted 50.4 million
This is the most fans have ever attended an NFL game other than the Super Bowl and conference championship games, according to Nielsen data. When Aaron Rodgers led the Packers to a 34-31 victory over the Cowboys in front of 48.5 million viewers on January 15, 2017, Fox set a record for the highest point for a Divisional Round broadcast.
As a point of contrast, each episode of a broadcast primetime show typically draws 3.06 million viewers. Aside from crushing the World Series and NBA Finals, the most recent Allen vs. Mahomes matchup between quarterbacks is arguably the most intriguing since Tom Brady and Peyton Manning battled it out from 2001 to 2015. It also nearly doubles the number of State of the Union Address delivery.
The Chiefs narrowly defeated the Bills 27–24 on Sunday, but it was only the
The Chiefs’ 27-24 victory over the Bills on Sunday was only the most recent in a string of exciting games involving the two quarterbacks. The crowd has grown as the rivalry between the two teams has intensified, and Kansas City has won all three of its postseason games versus Buffalo thus far. 41.8 million people saw the Chiefs’ 38-24 victory in the 2021 AFC Championship game, while 42.7 million watched the team’s OT victory in the Divisional Round the following season.
When 1:44 remained in the game, Bills kicker Tyler Bass missed a 44-yard field goal that would have tied the score, causing the CBS broadcast to peak at 56.3 million people. In the contest, there were five lead changes.
As has been the case ever since Nielsen included out-of-home deliveries in its nationwide TV sample in 2020, it is important to remember that impressions obtained in public places such as restaurants and bars artificially boost ratings. Prior to OOH’s integration with traditional TV viewership, those additional eyes were disregarded. However, a network source soon after the 2017 Green Bay-Dallas matchup stated that the game’s true reach was probably between 54 million and 55 million total viewers.
With an average viewership of 37.5 million during the late Saturday slot, San Francisco’s victory over Green Bay provided Fox with the second-highest audience of the weekend. Compared to the same Giants-Eagles game a year prior (28.6 million), that represented a 31% rise. Currently, the match between the two most illustrious NFC clubs is the most watched Saturday TV event since the 1994 Winter Olympics, when 40.8 million people watched the women’s figure skating final on CBS, which included Nancy Kerrigan and Tanya Harding.
Much of the reason for the increased interest in the Lillehammer broadcast was the attack on Kerrigan, which was carried out by a dim-witted, shady group that included Harding’s boyfriend and a bodyguard. After being upset by 16-year-old Ukrainian skater Oksana Baiul, Kerrigan would win the silver, and a shaken Harding would finish without a medal.
The Sunday Tampa-Detroit game on NBC averaged 37.2 million viewers in the early windows of the weekend. When streaming impressions from Adobe Analytics were added, the total increased to 40.4 million. With the cross-platform total, NBC had its highest Divisional Round viewership since 1994, albeit the same cautions regarding OOH inflation apply as before.
Nielsen reports that during the Lions’ 31-23 victory, 77% of the TVs in use in the Detroit market were set to NBC. Detroit’s first playoff triumph in thirty-two years came from a Jared Goff victory over his old team.
Finally, Baltimore’s rout of Houston by 24 points on ESPN and ABC averaged 32.4 million people, making it the highest viewed NFL game on a Disney-owned network since Super Bowl XL in 2006.
In comparison to the 36.5 million TV viewers from the previous season, the Divisional Round averaged 39.4 million, an 8% increase. According to Inscape estimates, the NFL last weekend accounted for 38.3% of all TV consumption in the United States, maintaining its control over the medium. Advertising income for each of the four windows exceeded $100 million, and the total amount spent on playoffs to yet has come to approximately $738.4 million. The NFL playoffs are drawing an average of 33.9 million viewers per broadcast through the first two rounds, which is 7% more than the 31.6 million viewers from the previous year.
On Championship Sunday, CBS and Fox want to continue their winning ways with the Ravens-Chiefs game in the early window and the Lions-49ers game in primetime. The viewership figures to beat are the 53.1 million recorded for the heart attack-causing Chiefs vs. Bengals game in the 2023 AFC title game, and the 47.5 million for the unfavorable Niners vs. Eagles game from the previous season.
