The Chiefs-Patriots AFC Championship rematch scored big in the overnight ratings. Also: overnights rose for the Big Ten Championship; ESPN posted double-digit gains for its Friday NBA doubleheader.
Big overnight for Chiefs-Pats
Sunday’s Week 14 NFL national window (Chiefs-Patriots in 83% of markets) averaged a 17.5 rating on CBS, the network’s highest regular season NFL overnight since Week 10 in 2015 (Patriots-Giants: 18.3). Across all networks, the 17.5 trails only Cowboys-Patriots on FOX in Week 12 (19.5) as the highest since 2016.
Overnights increased 9% from a 16.0 both last year (mostly Eagles-Cowboys) and in 2017 (mostly Eagles-Rams).
Overnight ratings were not available for any of Sunday’s other NFL windows.
Overnights rise for Big Ten title game
Saturday’s Ohio State-Wisconsin Big Ten Championship game averaged a 7.8 overnight rating on FOX, up 39% from last year (Ohio State-Northwestern: 5.6) but down 3% from the same matchup in 2017 (8.0).
The 7.8 is the highest of the season for a college football game on FOX, topping the previous mark of 7.5 for Ohio State-Michigan the previous week.
Friday NBA up double-digits on ESPN
Lakers-Blazers averaged 1.62 million viewers on the latest edition of ESPN NBA Friday, up 75% from last year (Blazers-Nuggets: 0.6, 923K). Earlier in the night, Nuggets-Celtics drew 1.11 million (+15%).
Friday’s games were the first on ESPN or TNT to increase since November 15 (Celtics-Warriors: +5%), snapping a streak of eight straight declines.
[Nielsen estimates from CBS Sports, Fox Sports, ShowBuzz Daily 12.9]
