We noted that this year’s Wild Card Weekend numbers were down from last year. There were a couple of factors including ESPN’s first foray in the postseason plus a couple of smaller market teams. However, for this year’s Divisional Weekend with glamor teams like Baltimore, Dallas, Denver, Green Bay and New England involved, the conventional wisdom is that the numbers would be up and that is exactly what happened.

With all four games this past weekend on broadcast television as compared to the previous weekend, viewership went up thanks specifically to the Dallas-Green Bay game which was close late into the game and also has some controversy to boot.

First things first. On Saturday, the Baltimore-New England game on NBC received a 19.6 rating/37 share and an audience of 34.0 million which is up from last year’s New Orleans-Seattle game on Fox in the same timeslot which garnered 31.1 million viewers.

The late game on Saturday, between Carolina and Seattle on Fox registered an average of 31.0 million viewers which is down slightly from Colts-Patriots on CBS last year and that received a huge 31.7 million viewers. The rating for Carolina-Seattle was 17.2/29 and Fox says that’s the highest-rated and most-watched NFL primetime game in the network’s history.

On Sunday, that is where the viewership reigned supreme for the NFL and its partners. The Dallas-Green Bay game which was in the early 1 p.m. timeslot on Fox received an average of 44.4 million viewers which is way up from the San Francisco-Carolina 2014 game at the same time on Fox which averaged 33.3 million. The game averaged 24.9/48 and that’s the highest number for the 1 p.m. Divisional Playoff window on Fox. Viewership was up 33% and ratings increased by 25% from last year’s 49ers-Panthers game.

And the late game, Indianapolis at Denver on CBS averaged 41.8 million viewers, up slightly from last year’s San Diego-Denver game in the same late afternoon slot on CBS and that received 41.2 million. CBS averaged a 23.3 rating for Colts-Broncos.

Had the Dallas-Green Bay been in the late slot, its numbers would have been up much higher, but seeing that it outpaced the late CBS game in viewership shows its attraction to the viewing public.

And NFL spokesman Greg Aiello pointed out that 2015 Divisional Weekend outpaced last year’s in viewership:

So during a season where NFL viewership was up just slightly during the regular season, the league has a chance to look at this past weekend’s ratings and has some reason to smile going into Conference Championship Weekend.

About Ken Fang

Ken has been covering the sports media in earnest at his own site, Fang's Bites since May 2007 and at Awful Announcing since March 2013.

He provides a unique perspective having been an award-winning radio news reporter in Providence and having worked in local television.

Fang celebrates the four Boston Red Sox World Championships in the 21st Century, but continues to be a long-suffering Cleveland Browns fan.

Comments are closed.