NFL Wild Card Ratings Hit Saturday Night Low

While NFL Wild Card ratings fell across the board last weekend, NBC’s primetime Falcons-Rams game was by far the biggest bust.

Saturday’s Falcons-Rams NFC Wild Card had a 12.8 rating and 22.8 million viewers on NBC, down 14% in ratings and 15% in viewership from last year (Lions-Seahawks: 14.8, 26.9M) and down 27% in both measures from 2015 on CBS (Steelers-Bengals: 17.5, 31.2M).

Including streaming, it had 23.0 million — still down 15% from last year (27.1M).

Atlanta’s win, which peaked with 25.3 million from 9:45-10 PM ET, ranks as the lowest rated primetime Wild Card game ever (17 games dating back to 2002). The previous low was a 13.9 for Jets-Raiders in 2002 and Jaguars-Patriots in 2006, both on ABC. It was the least-watched since that 2006 game (22.6M).

Ratings for the primetime game have dropped in three of the past four years, the lone exception being Steelers-Bengals on CBS in ’16. Just four years ago — a lifetime ago in many respects — the primetime game had a 19.1 and 34.4 million.

For the first time since 2006, and just the second time since the current scheduling format began in 2002, the primetime game was the lowest rated of Wild Card weekend.

In addition, it was the lowest rated Wild Card game on NBC since Chiefs-Colts in 2007 (12.6) and the least-watched since Bengals-Texans in 2012 (21.9M). Those were afternoon games.

Neither Atlanta nor Los Angeles was the top market for Saturday’s game. New Orleans led the way with a 30.0. Atlanta was second with a 29.0 (by comparison, Monday’s Alabama-Georgia college football championship had a 47.8). Minneapolis-St. Paul (21.5), Norfolk, Va. (21.0) and Buffalo (20.0) rounded out the top five.

Los Angeles ranked sixth with an 18.7 rating, its highest since the Rams moved back to the market last year.

Saturday’s game had a 7.0 rating in adults 18-49, down 17% from last year (8.4) and down 31% from 2015 on CBS (10.1).

The full 2017 NFL ratings page is available here.