Postponed a day due to inclement weather, a Steelers-Bills holiday matinee outdrew last year’s equivalent Sunday afternoon game.
Monday’s Steelers-Bills AFC Wild Card game averaged a 15.7 rating and 31.05 million viewers on CBS, marking the most-watched AFC Wild Card game in any window since Tom Brady’s Patriots finale four years ago (Titans-Patriots: 31.42M). The Bills’ win was originally scheduled for Sunday afternoon but was postponed to Monday due to inclement weather.
Compared to Dolphins-Bills in the scheduled Sunday afternoon window last year, ratings declined 2% (from 16.1) but viewership increased 1% (from 30.87M).
While Martin Luther King Day is a federal holiday, fewer than half of private-sector workers — as of pre-COVID 2019 — get the day off. As a result, it would have been fair to expect a lower-than-usual audience for a game that kicked off during the workday. Instead, the game was the most-watched program on an unusually busy day of television.
The primetime Eagles-Buccaneers NFC Wild Card game averaged a combined 29.18 million across ABC (18.79M), ESPN (9.32M), ESPN2 (1.03M) and ESPN Deportes (48K), down 6% from Cowboys-Buccaneers last year (31.20M) but the third-largest audience for a Wild Card game on ESPN/ABC since the networks were acquired by Disney in 1996. (Going back further, it ranks fifth among Wild Card games on ESPN/ABC dating back to the 1991-92 season.)
Earlier in the day, ESPN’s various studio shows delivered record audiences. “First Take” averaged 1.52 million viewers — more-than-double the same day last year (734K) — preceded by “Get Up” at 979,000 (+69%) and followed by “The Pat McAfee Show” at 811,000. All three shows set records. The post-McAfee SportsCenter averaed 727,000 and “NFL Live” 779,000. Due to competition from Steelers-Bills, “Around the Horn” (275K) and “Pardon the Interruption” (434K) were far lower.
NFL competition also hammered TNT’s NBA doubleheader. Warriors-Grizzlies averaged 513,000 viewers, down 36% from Suns-Grizzlies last year (805K). Spurs-Hawks led-in with just 345,000, down 43% from Heat-Hawks last year (604K) and the least-watched game on ESPN or TNT since at least the 2009-10 season. The previous low was 377,000 for Bulls-Grizzlies on ESPN in 2017 under the exact same circumstance of facing a rescheduled NFL playoff game.
The NBA fared better on NBA TV as Thunder-Lakers averaged 305,000 viewers — up 70% from Rockets-Lakers last year (179K) — and Rockets-Sixers drew 217,000 (+7%).
In other live sports action, PBA bowling on FOX averaged 580,000. Figures for the preceding college basketball games on FOX will be added when available.
Monday, January 15 sports viewership
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Original chart below:
