Two high profile teams and one big name quarterback helped FOX earn the single largest audience ever for an NFL Wild Card game.
The Packers/Eagles NFC Wild Card game earned a 22.1 rating and 39.3 million viewers on FOX Sunday afternoon, according to Nielsen fast-nationals, up 13% in ratings and up 14% in viewership from last year (19.6, 34.406 mil), and up 26% and 31%, respectively, from 2009 (PHI/MIN: 17.6 30.026 mil).
The Packers eliminated the Eagles and their quarterback Michael Vick, whose resurgence became a major story — and a source of controversy — during the NFL season.
Green Bay’s win ranks as the highest rated NFL Wild Card game since 1999 (GB/SF: 23.6), and the most-viewed ever.
Additionally, this marks the most-viewed Wild Card or Divisional Round game since 2008 (NYG/DAL: 40.063 mil).
Overall, Packers/Eagles drew the tenth-largest audience for any sporting event of the last three calendar years (dating back to 2008), behind three Super Bowls, three AFC Championship Games, two NFC Championship Games and the aforementioned Giants/Cowboys Divisional Round game.
This is the third straight year ratings and viewership have improved for the late Sunday NFL Wild Card window. As recently as 2008, the late Sunday game drew a comparably pedestrian 16.7 and 26.6 million viewers; coincidentally, that was the last year the late game aired on CBS.
(FOX press release from TV By The Numbers)
