NFL Wild Card weekend was not quite as “super” as last year, at least in the ratings.
Sunday’s Giants-Vikings NFL NFC Wild Card game averaged a 16.3 rating and 33.21 million viewers on FOX, marking the highest rated and most-watched game of the weekend, but down 21% and 20% respectively from 49ers-Cowboys on CBS and Nickelodeon last year (20.7, 41.50M).
The Giants’ win, which peaked with 40.06 million viewers from 7:30-7:45 PM ET, ranks just 12th out of the last 14 Wild Card games in the late Sunday afternoon window — topping only Bears-Saints two years ago and Panthers-Saints in 2018. At the same time, it was the most-watched Wild Card game on FOX since 2017 — the last time the network carried a game in that late Sunday window.
Overall, four of the six Wild Card games declined from last year. FOX saw a slight drop for its Seahawks-49ers game on Saturday afternoon (13.5, 27.46M), and NBC posted declines for both its games — more than 20% for Chargers-Jaguars Saturday night (10.45, 20.61M) and single-digits for Ravens-Bengals on Sunday (13.8, 26.87M).
The linear audience for Chargers-Jaguars is the lowest on record for a primetime NFL playoff game and the fourth-lowest of any Wild Card game in at least 20 seasons. (Including additional streaming viewership not tracked by Nielsen, the game’s audience of 21.8 million still ranks as the lowest for a primetime playoff game.)
The only games to buck the downward trend were — as previously noted — Bills-Dolphins on CBS and Cowboys-Buccaneers on ESPN and ABC. The former averaged a 16.1 and 30.87 million, up 1% in ratings and 2% in viewership from Eagles-Buccaneers on FOX last year (16.0, 30.37M) and the most-watched Wild Card game in the early Sunday window since Seahawks-Vikings in 2016 (35.36M).
Cowboys-Buccaneers on Monday night averaged a 16.6 and 31.2 million across ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, ESPN+ and ESPN Deportes, up 31% and 35% respectively from Cardinals-Rams last year and the most-watched primetime Wild Card game since a Saturday night Titans-Patriots game on CBS three years ago (31.42M).
This year marks the first time in recent memory that the highest rated game of Wild Card weekend did not air on Sunday.
The Cowboys’ win would have been the most-watched of the weekend if not for out-of-home viewing. The out-of-home audience Monday night was 1.95 million across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, compared to 4.23 million for Giants-Vikings on FOX Sunday.
With out-of-home viewing excluded, Cowboys-Buccaneers averaged 29.15 million, Giants-Vikings 28.99 million, Dolphins-Bills 27.05 million, Ravens-Bengals 24.42 million, Seahawks-49ers 23.59 million and Jaguars-Chargers just 18.09 million.
(Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily, network PR)
