A big market thriller delivered massive numbers for NBC.
Sunday’s Eagles-Bears NFC Wild Card game had a 19.7 rating and 35.89 million viewers on NBC, up 13% in ratings and 15% in viewership from last year (Panthers-Saints: 17.5, 31.2M) but down 8% and 9% respectively from 2016 (Giants-Packers: 21.3, 39.3M). Those games aired on FOX.
Versus NBC’s Wild Card game last year, Falcons-Rams on a Saturday night, ratings increased 54% (from 12.8) and viewership 57% (from 22.8M).
The Eagles’ narrow win, which peaked with 45.1 million from 7:45 PM ET through the conclusion, delivered the largest Wild Card audience on NBC in at least 32 years (Nielsen people meter records date back to 1988). The previous high was 35.86 million for Seahawks-Oilers in 1988.
Excluding the Super Bowl, it was NBC’s second-most watched NFL telecast of any kind since the 1998 AFC Championship Game. A Steelers-Chiefs Divisional Round game two years ago had 37.1 million.
The 19.7 rating is NBC’s highest for a Wild Card game in three years (2016 Seahawks-Vikings: 21.0), and third-highest for a non-Super Bowl game since 1998. The aforementioned Steelers-Chiefs game in 2017 had a 19.8.
Across all networks, Eagles-Bears ranks as the eighth-most watched Wild Card game on record. The top seven aired in the same late Sunday window from 2011-17. In other words, despite the historic audience, it still ranks as the second-least watched Wild Card game in the late Sunday window since 2010.
To put the numbers in perspective, the most-watched NBA game on record — Chicago’s Bulls over the Jazz in the 1998 NBA Finals — had the exact same 35.89 million TV viewers.
Sunday’s game had a streaming audience of 533,000, a Wild Card record for NBC Sports’ digital platforms. The combined TV and streaming audience was 36.4 million.
Philadelphia led all markets with a 44.6 rating, followed by Chicago at a 43.1. New Orleans was the top neutral market with a 34.5. Milwaukee ranked fourth at a 32.0, with Norfolk, Va., rounding out the top five (31.5).
[Numbers from NBC Sports PR 1.7]
