The first ever playoff meeting of Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers delivered the largest NFC Championship audience in four years.
Sunday’s Buccaneers-Packers NFC Championship Game averaged a 23.0 rating and 44.77 million viewers on FOX (45.96M including Fox Deportes and additional streaming viewership), marking the most-watched NFC title game since Packers-Falcons in 2017 (46.28M). Ratings and viewership increased 5% from last year’s NFC title game, which aired in the late window (Packers-49ers: 22.0, 42.79M).
Tampa Bay’s win, which peaked with 53.0 million viewers from 6-6:15 PM ET, was also the most-watched early conference championship game since that 2017 matchup. Compared to the same window last year — Titans-Chiefs on CBS — ratings fell a tick but viewership jumped 9% from a 23.1 and 41.10 million.
The NFC Championship was the first game of the NFL Playoffs to post an increase over last season.
Later in the day, the Bills-Chiefs AFC Championship averaged a 21.1 and 41.85 million — down 9% in ratings but up 2% in viewership from Titans-Chiefs in the early window last year. Versus Packers-49ers in the same window last year, Kansas City’s win declined 4% and 2% respectively.
As one would expect, the two conference championship games rank as easily the highest rated and most-watched television programs (on a single network) since last year’s Super Bowl. Both games easily outdrew last week’s presidential inauguration, which averaged 33.8 million across 17 networks over six hours. No non-NFL sporting event has had as large an audience as either of Sunday’s games since the women’s figure skating final at the 2002 Winter Olympics (43.31M).
Even with objectively massive numbers, it should be noted that both conference championships hit ratings lows in their respective windows. Buccaneers-Packers was the lowest rated early conference title game since 2009 (Eagles-Cardinals: 21.9) and Bills-Chiefs was the lowest rated in the late window since 2006 (Panthers-Seahawks: 20.8).
Locally, Bills-Chiefs averaged a 61.9 rating and 85 share in Kansas City, per John Ourand of Sports Business Daily. The rating exceeds the Chiefs’ Super Bowl win last year (55.7)* and the Royals’ World Series clincher in 2015 (60.0). Buffalo ratings were not immediately available.
Buccaneers-Packers averaged a 48.1/77 in Milwaukee and a 39.9/68 in Tampa-St. Petersburg. Patriots markets Providence, R.I. (37.9/62) and Boston (36.0/64) both ranked in the top five; Brady used to play for New England. Kansas City also cracked the top five at a 37.1/65.
The full list of 2020 NFL ratings is available here.
* Last year’s Super Bowl had a higher share, 89.
[Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 1.26, Ourand/Twitter 1.25, Fox Sports PR]
