NFL Divisional Round weekend saw the networks claim a slew of historic viewership highs, though not all of them stand up to scrutiny.
The NFL Divisional Round averaged 39.2 million viewers per window across NBC, CBS, ESPN/ABC and FOX, trailing only two years ago as the highest average on record for the round. Viewership increased 5% from last year, within the range that can be explained by Nielsen’s methodological changes of the past year (specifically the expansion of its out-of-home viewing sample and shift to a new methodology that combines “Big Data” from smart TVs and set-top boxes to its traditional panel).
Though it was not the most-watched game, the biggest headliner of the weekend was arguably Texans-Patriots — which averaged a combined 37.91 million viewers on ABC and the ESPN cable networks (37.97M including ESPN Deportes), the largest recorded audience for an event on the ESPN networks and the largest sports audience in the history of Disney, excluding the Super Bowl. It also ranks as the most-watched program on a Disney-owned network since the 2014 Academy Awards.
But all of those superlatives come with significant caveats, even by present-day standards.
Most crucially, ESPN is claiming the largest audience in its nearly 50-year history — “the most-watched event in ESPN history, dating back to the network’s launch in 1979” — when the lion’s share of the audience likely watched on ABC. While it is technically true that the game was the ‘most-watched in the history of ESPN’ as ABC is part of the ESPN family, the fact is that the audience on the ESPN cable network (which is what most people have in mind when they hear the name ‘ESPN’) almost certainly trailed any number of CFP and BCS national title games, and even possibly games like the 2024 Iowa-UConn NCAA women’s national semifinal (14.4M).
In all likelihood, ESPN would have set its all-time record by now if the NFL allowed it to air playoff games exclusively on its cable networks, a privilege the league has had not hesitated to bestow streamers Peacock and Prime Video. Amazon Prime Video recently enjoyed a record NFL streaming audience for its exclusive Packers-Bears Wild Card game. ESPN only got the chance just once, airing a Cardinals-Panthers Wild Card game in 2015, with all of its subsequent playoff inventory being simulcast on ABC.
As long as ESPN is required to share its playoff inventory with ABC, putting that combined audience into the ESPN record books is a bit like crediting NFL Network for the more than 33 million who watched Patriots clinch an undefeated regular season in Week 17 of the 2007 season, a game that was simulcast on CBS and NBC.
In addition, as noted in the ESPN release, Disney’s history of live sporting events only dates back about three decades to its 1996 acquisition of ABC and ESPN. ABC averaged 41.5 million for a Giants-49ers “Monday Night Football” game in 1990, to say nothing of the multiple World Series and Olympics the network carried throughout the 1980s. While many of those events aired before the Nielsen people-meter era that began in 1988, Nielsen was still releasing viewership estimates in those years — including nearly 52 million for Game 7 of the 1987 World Series on ABC.
Finally, as is the case across all networks and properties, Nielsen’s inclusion of out-of-home viewing in its estimates — which did not begin until 2020 and did not expand to cover 100 percent of markets until just last year — skews comparisons to prior years. It is a virtual lock that the 2006 Texas-USC Rose Bowl on ABC (35.63M) would have had a larger audience, even a considerably larger audience, had out-of-home viewing been included then. The same holds of the 2015 Ohio State-Oregon College Football Playoff National Championship on the ESPN cable networks (34.15M). Also in range are Game 7 of the 2016 Cavaliers-Warriors NBA Finals on ABC (31.02M) and the 2010 Alabama-Texas BCS National Championship on ABC (30.78M).
The Patriots’ win, which peaked with 44.9 million viewers in the 5:45 PM ET quarter-hour, increased 10% from last year’s Nielsen-only audience for Rams-Eagles on NBC, which aired in the same window (34.58M). But compared to the Nielsen + Adobe Analytics figure for last year’s game, viewership was up only slightly from 37.8 million, well within the range that could be explained fully by changes in Nielsen methodology.
Shifting to the other AFC Divisional Round game, Bills-Broncos averaged 39.6 million on CBS the prior afternoon — marking the largest audience on record for a Saturday NFL playoff game, surpassing 37.54 million for Packers-49ers on FOX two years ago. It is likely that the 2024 game would rank higher under current methodology.
Denver’s win, which averaged 50.21 million during the overtime period, also delivered the largest Saturday audience on any network since 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics on CBS, with all of the attendant caveats regarding changes in how those numbers are measured. Viewership increased 17% from Texans-Chiefs on ABC and the ESPN networks last year (33.76M).
As is almost always the case on any give NFL weekend, the most-watched game aired in the Sunday evening window as Rams-Bears averaged 45.4 million viewers on NBC, per a combination of Nielsen and Adobe Analytics — up from a Nielsen-only audience of 42.9 million for Ravens-Bills on CBS last year. (With a streaming audience of 5.3 million measured by Adobe Analytics, the Nielsen-only viewership figure of around 40.1 million would mark a decline from last year — but NBC’s position is that because Nielsen does not track its streaming viewership, its combined Nielsen + Adobe audience figures are comparable to the Nielsen-only figures of other networks.)
The Rams’ overtime win, which peaked with 52.6 million in the 9:45 PM ET quarter-hour, ranks as the most-watched Divisional Round game ever on the NBC networks. The previous high was a Nielsen-only 41.1 million in for Oilers-Chiefs in 1994, but that is from an era long before Nielsen began including out-of-home viewing in its estimates.
The only game that did not result in its network touting historic all-time highs was Seahawks-49ers on FOX, which with 32 million viewers declined from Commanders-Lions in the same window last year (34.6M).
