Sans the highest-profile teams and the familiar stars, the NFL’s conference championship games were unsurprisingly among the least-watched in recent years.
Sunday’s Patriots-Broncos AFC Championship averaged a 22.8 rating and 48.62 million viewers on CBS, down 12% in ratings and 15% in viewership from last year’s Chiefs-Bills AFC title game — which aired in the late window (25.8, 57.42M) — and the least-watched AFC title game since Bengals-Chiefs in 2022 (47.85M). The Patriots’ win, which peaked with 57.76 million viewers, increased 14% and 10% respectively from last year’s early window, the Commanders-Eagles NFC title game on FOX (20.0, 44.15M).
Later in the day, the Rams-Seahawks NFC Championship averaged a 20.9 and 46.09 million on FOX — up 5% in ratings and 4% in viewership from last year’s aforementioned Commanders-Eagles NFC title game, but down 19% and 20% respectively from Chiefs-Bills in the same late window.
The Seahawks’ win, which peaked with 49.69 million in the 9:30 PM ET quarter-hour, topped only Commanders-Eagles as the least-watched conference title game since Packers-49ers in January 2020 (42.48M). And given the changes in Nielsen methodology over the past year — specifically the expansion of its out-of-home viewing sample last February and its September shift to a new metric that combines its traditional panel with “Big Data” from smart TVs and set-top boxes — it would likely rank below last year’s game all things being equal.
The two games still rank as the second and fourth-most watched of the NFL season — the two Thanksgiving afternoon games rank first (Chiefs-Cowboys: 57.23M, CBS) and third (Packers-Lions: 47.67M, FOX) — but in past seasons the conference title games generally ranked one-two outside of the Super Bowl.
The relatively soft numbers are no surprise. The conference championship games featured none of the league’s top draws, from the Chiefs, Cowboys and Ravens — who missed the playoffs — to the Bills, Packers and Bears. The best-known and most accomplished quarterback entering the weekend was the Rams’ Matthew Stafford. The Broncos started a backup quarterback who had not thrown a pass in more than two years. The winning quarterbacks, Drake Maye and Sam Darnold, have yet to break through into the national consciousness — and Darnold in particular had already been (prematurely) written off after a disastrous run with the Jets, best remembered for his mic’d-up line about “seeing ghosts” during a “Monday Night Football” game.
There was some thought that winter weather around the country would boost viewership, and it is entirely possible the snowy conditions at Patriots-Broncos may have helped the early window to a rare win over the late game — a regional all-West Coast matchup where conditions were pristine. But no amount of snow was going to make up for the lack of the marquee draws viewers are used to this time of year.
And Saturday’s breaking news may have drawn some viewers away from live sports and to the cable news networks, a factor that probably impacted this month’s Fiesta Bowl audience as well.
Viewership had been trending up for the NFL postseason, with the Wild Card round up 13% and Divisional Round up 5%.
The full postseason is still up 5% to an average of 37.0 million, behind only 2024 as the highest average in the past decade. As a general rule, any increase at or below 10% is within the range that can be explained by Nielsen methodological changes.
Regular season viewership increased 10% to officially rank as the highest for the league since 1989.
