NFL Wild Card Weekend sees slight viewership dropoff from 2014

With ESPN entering the NFL Postseason fray for the first time, it would be natural to believe that there would be a dropoff in Wild Card Weekend viewership from the year before. And that assumption would be correct. While the NFL did see some very good numbers for the four games last weekend, overall viewership was down from 2014. All four games averaged just shy of 30 million viewers, coming in at 29.9 million viewers which while respectable, was down from last year’s record of 34.7 million watching on average.

And this year’s average viewership ends a four year streak where all four games averaged over 30 million.

The game with the highest viewership was the Detroit-Dallas game on Fox which received a 23.6 rating and 42.3 million viewers. But comparing that with last year’s NFC Wild Card game on Fox in the same late Sunday afternoon slot between San Francisco and Green Bay, the rating was 25.8 and the viewership was an astounding 47.1 million people.

CBS’ Cincinnati at Indianapolis AFC Wild Card game ranked second in viewership garnering 28.3 million viewers. However, that is also down from last year’s Wild Card game on CBS which pitted San Diego and Cincinnati in the early Sunday window which averaged 30.9 million viewers.

Then on Saturday, NBC aired the Baltimore at Pittsburgh contest and that got a rating of 15.8, down from last year’s primetime game which had New Orleans at Philadelphia and that got a huge 19.1 rating. NBC’s AFC viewership was 28.0 million which is quite good, but not as good as Saints-Eagles last year which got a whopping 34.4 million and was the most-watched Wild Card Saturday game ever.

And ESPN’s game which was the weakest matchup of the bunch, Arizona at Carolina, received a 12.5 rating and 21.7 million viewers. But comparing that to the Kansas City-Indianapolis game last year which aired in the same timeslot on NBC, the rating in 2014 for the early Saturday game was 16.0 and 27.6 million viewers.

In fact, both of the Wild Card Saturday games saw lower viewership than the College Football Playoff Semifinals on ESPN Thursday which received the two highest audiences in cable television history. Both the Rose and Sugar Bowl averaged over 28 million viewers.

So summing up, here’s how the games stacked up compared to last year:

NFL Wild Card Weekend Viewership

By comparison, here’s the New Year’s Day College Football Playoff Semifinals on ESPN

So with cable’s entrance into the NFL Postseason Party, the numbers saw a bit of a downturn, however, there are some takeaways for the NFL TV partners.

1. Fox’s Detroit-Dallas game is the third-most watched NFL Wild Card playoff game on record.
2. NBC’s game is the second most-watched Saturday AFC Wild Card game in 20 seasons.
3. ESPN’s game is the third most-watched NFL game on the network.

So as we go forward with ESPN’s participation in Wild Card Weekend, we’ll see if the NFL can improve on the numbers in 2016 or if the viewership remains flat or even decreases again.

[NFL Communications]