On a down weekend for NFL Wild Card ratings, the highest rated matchup hit a ten-year low.
Sunday’s Panthers-Saints NFC Wild Card Game had a 17.5 rating and 31.2 million viewers on FOX, down 18% in ratings and 21% in viewership from Giants-Packers last year (21.3, 39.3M) and down 20% in both measures from Green Bay-Washington in 2016 (21.8, 38.9M).
The 17.5 rating is the lowest for the late Sunday Wild Card game since Titans-Chargers on CBS ten years ago (16.7). The window had exceeded a 20.0 rating each year from 2011-17. Ratings for the late Sunday window have now declined in four straight years.
Viewership was the lowest in the window since Eagles-Vikings in 2009 (30.0M).
In addition, New Orleans’ win was the lowest rated and least-watched Wild Card game on FOX since 2012, the last time the network carried an early afternoon game (Falcons-Giants: 17.3, 27.7M).
Despite the multi-year lows, Sunday’s game delivered television’s largest audience since last year’s Academy Awards (32.9M) and the largest sports audience since last year’s Super Bowl.
The game had a 9.2 rating in adults 18-49, down 23% from last year’s 11.9. The 9.2 is TV’s highest rating in the demo since last year’s Super Bowl, topping the Oscars and Game 5 of last year’s NBA Finals (9.1 each).
While there is no sugarcoating a ten-year ratings low, it is worth noting that the late Sunday window had been blessed with high-profile matchups of late. In seven of the previous eight seasons, it featured either Green Bay, Dallas or Pittsburgh (the latter against Tim Tebow’s Broncos).
This year’s numbers would have been far less remarkable during the previous eight seasons (2002-09). During that stretch, ratings and viewership never exceeded an 18.9 and 30.4 million.
The full NFL ratings page is available here.
Late Sunday NFL Wild Card Ratings, Past Decade
[Wknd. numbers from ShowBuzz Daily 1.9]
