It was the weekend’s only game to decline, but Seahawks-Eagles still delivered one of the largest NFL Wild Card audiences in the past two decades.
Sunday’s Seahawks-Eagles NFC Wild Card game averaged a 19.2 rating and 35.12 million viewers on NBC, down 3% in ratings and 2% in viewership from last year (Eagles-Bears: 19.7, 35.89M) but up 10% and 13% respectively from 2018 on FOX (Panthers-Saints: 17.5, 31.15M).
Seattle’s win, which peaked with 38.5 million viewers from 7:30 PM ET through the conclusion, delivered the tenth-largest Wild Card audience since 1999.
It also scored the eighth-largest NFL audience on NBC since the network resumed airing games in 2006, and the fourth-largest excluding the Super Bowl.
Even with the strong numbers, the game posted the lone decline of Wild Card weekend. It topped only Panthers-Saints in ’18 as the lowest rated late Sunday Wild Card game since 2009 (Eagles-Vikings: 17.6) and least-watched since 2010 (Packers-Cardinals: 34.41M).
Including the streaming audience of 702,000 on NBC Sports’ digital platforms (+32%) — the largest for an NFL game on NBC outside of the Super Bowl — viewership was still off 2% from last year (to 35.8M).
Seattle led all markets Sunday with a 47.2 rating and a whopping 82 share, meaning that 82% of televisions in use were tuned to the game. Philadelphia ranked second with a 43.5 and 65.
The game averaged a 9.8 rating in adults 18-49 (-6%) and a 6.9 in adults 18-34 (-12%), both the highest in the demo since last year’s Super Bowl.
[Nielsen estimates from NBC Sports PR 1.6, ShowBuzz Daily 1.7 a, b]
