Say what one will about the Dallas Cowboys, but there is a reason they attract so much media attention.
Sunday’s Packers-Eagles NFC Wild Card Game averaged a 16.7 rating and 35.9 million viewers across all Fox Sports platforms, down 11% from Packers-Cowboys in the same window last year (19.1, 40.2M), but up 3% and 8% respectively from Giants-Vikings two years ago (16.3, 33.2M).
The Eagles’ win, which peaked with 39.5 million in the 7 PM ET quarter-hour, still delivered the third-largest Wild Card audience since 2019 — behind Packers-Cowboys and another Dallas game, against San Francisco on CBS and Nickelodeon in 2022 (41.5M).
Packers-Eagles was the most-watched game of Wild Card weekend, no surprise given it aired in the late afternoon Sunday window, typically the most-watched of any NFL weekend.
For the season, it ranks third in viewership behind the two Thanksgiving afternoon games, Bears-Lions on CBS (37.4M) and Giants-Cowboys on FOX (38.8M).
The Cowboys have played in the three most-watched Wild Card games of the past decade, with last year’s matchup and the 2022 game ranking behind Lions-Cowboys on FOX in 2015 (42.3M). Dallas missed the playoffs this season for the first time since the 2020 season. Not coincidentally, NFC broadcaster FOX had its least-watched regular season since 2020.
In other Wild Card weekend action, NBC averaged a 13.5 and 26.2 million for Commanders-Buccaneers on Sunday night — down 14% in ratings and 19% in viewership from Rams-Lions last year (15.6, 32.2M) and the least-watched Sunday night Wild Card game since the first year of the expanded, six-team format in 2021 (Browns-Steelers: 24.8M). Including additional streaming viewership tracked by Adobe Analytics, the game audience of 29 million declined 19% from last year’s 36 million.
On Monday night, the relocated Vikings-Rams game from Arizona combined to average a 13.3 and 25.3 million across ABC (7.7, 14.3M), ESPN (5.1, 10.2M) and the Peyton and Eli “Manningcast” on ESPN2 (0.47, 881K) — down 12% and 13% respectively from Eagles-Buccaneers last year (15.1, 29.2M) and the least-watched Monday night Wild Card game in three years (Cardinals-Rams: 12.7, 23.2M).
Los Angeles’ easy win, which peaked with 30.1 million during the first half, was on pace for a larger audience until the game got out of hand. The first half averaged 28.3 million.
Bucking the downward trend, CBS averaged 31.1 million for Broncos-Bills on Sunday — about even with Steelers-Bills last year, which was pushed to Monday afternoon due to weather (31.1M). CBS and Nickelodeon combined to average 26.0 million for Chargers-Texans, down a hair from last year’s Nielsen-only audience for Browns-Texans on NBC (26.1M).
