Wild Card viewership mostly down

MINNEAPOLIS, MN - JANUARY 15: New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley (26) hurdles Minnesota Vikings linebacker Jordan Hicks (58) during the NFL game between the New York Giants and Minnesota Vikings on January 15th, 2023, at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, MN. (Photo by Bailey Hillesheim/Icon Sportswire)

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)

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Jon Lewis

Jon Lewis has been covering the sports media industry on a daily basis since 2006 as the founder and main writer of Sports Media Watch. You can contact him here or on the social media websites X (Twitter) or Bluesky.

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Comments 5

Nate Johnson says:

4 years ago

Paulsen, I absolutely agree that Michaels is in his 2005 NBA coverage form. I also recall the Bill Simmons article on imagining Michaels getting in his limo after each Finals game counting down to the Hall of Fame game. He had reasons to be excited over an NBA game that had the Lakers’ Kobe and Shaq in their final season as teammates. As the late commissioner David Stern once said, the NBA was the Lakers vs. Lakers. After their lost to Detroit in the NBA Finals, began the dark ages of the NBA for the following 3 seasons.

You were spot on also of Michaels going from Doc Rivers to Hubie Brown. I’m sure his friendship with Rivers would’ve help Michaels during the 2005 year had Rivers not returned to coaching. Brown was too professional at what he did which is fine and absolutely no problem. For someone like Michaels who naturally loves the NFL, LA Kings, and the MLB, Brown wasn’t the partner to get Michaels fired up for an NBA game in which Michaels doesn’t naturally love (although I did once hear Michaels say Steph Curry was must see TV along with Pat Mahomes).

As mentioned in my original post, I do believe Michaels has lost some love of calling the games going through the TNF schedule. He kind of mentioned that in some of his published interviews. I am very curious on how they’ll schedule TNF next season including that Black Friday game. I counted 14 teams that maybe could lead a TNF match-up as of today. I’m sure there will be matchups within those 14 teams. There’s only 14 or 15 games they’ll televise with no teams recycling. So I see no fix in this. Michaels won’t pretend to be excited about a poor matchup or a poor game (staying true to his self). Social media will take notice and make a big deal out of it. NFL will take action. Noah Eagle calls the other WC game on NBC January 2024. Al Michaels will be let go of calling NFL games. Hopefully I’m wrong, but I have my doubts that I am about this one.

I thought TJ brought up an interesting point about Pat Summerall before 1984 and after. It makes me wonders if it all had to do with RS vs. Playoffs matchups. Something to take note of is that Summerall did battle alcohol vices so it possibly had something to do with that as well. I thought Summerall was excellent though. I still listen to his games and enjoy doing so. While I am not a huge Jim Nantz fan, I do believe Nantz learned a lot from Summerall and applied some of his style to his commentary style. The same goes with Joe Buck and that was part reason why he won Emmys during the years he was being heavily hated on. Michaels is his own person, but he’s not going to allow his self to be bigger than the rolling pictures or what’s on the field in the thriller of victory and agony of defeat moments.
- Paulsen says:
  
  4 years ago
  
  I agree that Noah Eagle seems a virtual lock to get that second playoff game, if not next year than one would think by 2025.
Nate Johnson says:

4 years ago

I’m going to do two different posts on Al Michaels and Tony Dungy. One for my personal commentary and another for my response to the SMW podcast.

First thing first, I watched the game with no sound at a semi-sports bar. An hour or two after the game was when I found out that social media didn’t like how Michaels and Dungy called the game and/or how Michaels called the game late as the Jaguars was completing a 27-0 comeback. I listened to the crucial 4th and 1 Etienne conversion and the GW FG and knew Michaels didn’t get up for those moments. I then decided to listen to the game in full on Tuesday and actually took notes.

My analysis on it was that I thought the two did an excellent job in the first half. Michaels pretty much dumped out all of his highlights and necessary information of the two teams in that half and that was without Kaylee Hartung setting up anything for him (after kickoff the first time she was heard from was under the 2 minute warning I believe). So that tells me he was really prepared for the game. Dungy did well analyzing all 4 of Lawrence’s interceptions. I also liked how the two explained how RS calls doesn’t always gets called in the playoffs. Lastly, I thought Michaels did good acknowledging that Dungy once came back from a 21 point with 3 minutes to play setting him up on what the Jags needs to do. Dungy ended that by saying “Never say never” and Michaels afterwards said “You’re learning well how to keep an audience”. So it seems like it wasn’t that bad from the two and a 27-7 Halftime score might’ve had a lot to do with it.

After that, they maintained their way of calling the game (staying true to themselves). No adjustments whatsoever once the Jaguars was closing in the margin and was putting together their GW drive. No one was trying to sell the audience on the Jaguars making it interesting. I mentioned the 4th and 1 and GW FG call and it was surprising to hear Michaels not get up for that moment or give a phrase that was organic (not being true to his self). Normally Michaels is on point with those calls especially when you go back to some games he called during the WC round for NBC throughout these years. So in a severe rarity do I agree with social media acknowledging how Michaels didn’t live up to the moment in his call. My reason is simply on Michaels’ standards from the previous close finish WC games he called. I believe that’s fair analysis. I do agree with Michaels on his “internet combust” response. There was reactions on Michaels that was over the wall and it’s almost to say that they’ve been spoiled by College Football play-by-play men and some of the younger NFL play-by-play men on playback of highlight plays on Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube. However, Michaels was responsible for starting the fire of the internet combust.

It’s tough having to type that. I understand 2022 season is not a season for Michaels to remember. I was hoping he would’ve moved to FOX and call 2 of the next 3 Super Bowls. Day-time kickoffs and a normal routine would’ve helped Michaels a lot given the age he’s at right now. While I believe that a SNF weekly routine could wane off for Michaels even with some unique matchups and repetitive A-listed teams/QBs, a TNF schedule where the routine is not the same as SNF in regards to matchups, teams that has to be covered, and preparation for the game does takes a toll on Michaels and is why he, Nantz, and Buck (along with their partners of course) took some Sundays off when they had TNF duties. So I won’t be surprised if he lost the love. I sensed that looking back in the Madden years on ABC when they was getting lobsided games in 2002 and under valued games 2003-2005. Meanwhile when he gets one of the best matchups week-to-week in his last 3 seasons with Madden on NBC because of flex scheduling, it was almost as if he was re-charged.
Samuel says:

4 years ago

I think you meant Bears-Saints, not Bills-Saints two years ago.
- Paulsen says:
  
  4 years ago
  
  Thanks for catching that.