If there was any question whether the NFL regards streaming as the equal of the broadcast networks, Prime Video is getting arguably the highest-profile game of Wild Card weekend.
The NFL announced Sunday that next week’s Packers-Bears NFC Wild Card playoff game, the rivals’ first postseason meeting since the 2011 NFC Championship and third all-time, will air in a Saturday night window on Amazon Prime Video. While the league has scheduled marquee playoff games for streaming services before — Dolphins-Chiefs on Peacock two years ago and Steelers-Ravens last year — in neither case was the matchup the highest-profile of the weekend.
While one could make an argument for 49ers-Eagles, which will air in the late Sunday afternoon window on FOX next week, Packers-Bears is at least on paper the most attractive of the six Wild Card games for television purposes. The rivals’ matchup in Week 14 headlined a FOX national window that averaged 27.9 million viewers — ranking ninth for the season through last week’s games, the only Wild Card matchup to rank in the top ten.
A second matchup two weeks later averaged 21.3 million in the same Saturday night window that next week’s game will occupy (albeit on FOX).
Last year’s Steelers-Ravens Wild Card game on Prime Video averaged 22.07 million viewers (including local over-the-air simulcasts in the home markets), down 3% from the previous year’s Dolphins-Chiefs game on Peacock. (Though it should be noted that the household rating was up 5%.) Given the matchup and the Nielsen methodological changes of the past year, it is highly unlikely that Prime will suffer a decline this time around.
The real question is whether Packers-Bears is a strong enough matchup to not only surpass Dolphins-Chiefs two years ago, but break the recently set NFL streaming record of 27.5 million for Lions-Vikings on Netflix Christmas Day.
Packers-Bears will be only the fourth NFL playoff game all-time that does not air nationally on broadcast television. In addition to the aforementioned Steelers-Ravens and Dolphins-Chiefs games, ESPN carried a Cardinals-Panthers Wild Card game in 2015.
