The Super Bowl champions’ title defense ended in front of a massive TV audience.
Sunday’s Eagles-Saints NFC Divisional Round game delivered a 20.8 rating and 38.2 million viewers on FOX, per Nielsen fast-nationals — up 8% in ratings and 7% in viewership from last year (Saints-Vikings: 19.3, 35.6M), but down 20% and 21% respectively from Packers-Cowboys in 2017, the most-watched early round NFL playoff game on record (26.1, 48.5M).
The Saints’ win ranks as the highest rated and most-watched game of the NFL season. The previous highs were a 19.7 and 35.9 million for Eagles-Bears in the same window the previous week. FOX owns four of the top five NFL audiences this season, pending final results for Sunday’s Chargers-Patriots game on CBS.
Despite ratings that are both up and objectively massive, it is worth noting that Sunday’s game remains on the lower end of the historical scale. It surpassed only last year as the lowest rated late Sunday Divisional Round game since 2010 (Jets-Chargers: 20.1), and the least-watched since 2013 (Texans-Patriots: 37.7M). The window exceeded 40 million viewers in all-but-one year from 2011-17.
Compared to the rest of television, the numbers are virtually unmatched. Not counting major news events that air across numerous networks, only one television program in the past five years has had a larger audience — Game 7 of the 2016 World Series (40.1M).
The game had a streaming audience of 682,000, a new playoff-record for Fox Sports’ digital platforms. Including those viewers, and the 79,000 who watched on Fox Deportes, the game had 38.9 million.
The TV audience peaked at 45.6 million, actually down from last year’s peak of 46.1 million. Last year’s game was decided in the final seconds.
[Numbers from Fox Sports PR/Twitter 1.14]
