An overtime game featuring one of the most storied franchises in sports and an opponent from the #1 media market in the country equaled huge numbers for FOX on Sunday.
The NFC Championship Game between the New York Giants and Green Bay Packers drew a whopping 53.9 million viewers on Sunday, the largest audience for a single non-Super Bowl television program since the series finale of Seinfeld in 1998. That number swelled to 65.1 million viewers for the final portion of the game, when Lawrence Tynes hit the game winning field goal.
The game drew a 29.0/43, the highest rating for an NFL Championship Game since 1997, when Packers/Panthers drew a 30.1/58. By the end of the game, the rating rose to a 34.9/49.
To put the rating in perspective, no non-Olympic, non-Super Bowl sporting event has drawn a rating that high since Game 7 of the 1991 World Series, which drew a 32.2/49.
The AFC Championship Game put up large numbers as well. The Patriots victory over the Chargers drew a 25.7/46 in the early timeslot on CBS, up 2% from the comparable Saints/Bears telecast in ’07. The game averaged 44.8 million viewers; combined, the AFC and NFC Championship games averaged 49.7 million viewers, the highest since 1995.
