Viewer audiences for the primary weekend of the NFL playoffs have been down 9.3% from final 12 months, an even bigger decline than what the league skilled through the common season.
In keeping with the league and Nielsen, the six wild-card spherical video games averaged 28.3 million viewers on tv and digital platforms, in comparison with 31.2 million final 12 months.
The 2 Saturday video games held regular, whereas the Sunday and Monday matchups noticed declines.
The most important takeaway from the weekend is that audiences have acclimated to one of many video games being on a streaming service. Baltimore’s victory over Pittsburgh averaged 22.07 million on Amazon Prime Video. It’s a file for the most-watched recreation on Prime, surpassing the 17.29 million for the Detroit-Inexperienced Bay recreation on Dec. 5.
It was a 3% drop from final 12 months’s 23 million common on Peacock for the Miami-Kansas Metropolis matchup.
Probably the most-viewed recreation of the weekend was Philadelphia’s victory over Inexperienced Bay on Fox, which averaged 35.6 million within the Sunday late-afternoon window. Nevertheless, that was an 11% decline from the Packers-Cowboys recreation on Fox that aired at an identical time final 12 months.
Washington’s comeback win over Tampa Bay on Sunday night time — essentially the most aggressive recreation of the wild-card spherical — averaged 29 million on NBC. That was down 19% from final 12 months’s Rams-Lions recreation.
Houston’s victory towards the Los Angeles Chargers in Saturday’s first recreation on CBS averaged 25.6 million, only one% off from the Browns-Texans recreation on NBC final 12 months.
Buffalo’s blowout of Denver in Sunday’s first recreation averaged 31.1 million on CBS. That matched the viewers from final 12 months’s Steelers-Payments recreation, which was delayed till Monday afternoon because of climate.
The Rams’ rout of Minnesota on Monday night time averaged 25.3 million on ESPN and ABC, down 13% from final 12 months’s Eagles-Buccaneers recreation.
The league averaged 17.5 million through the common season. Whereas it was the sixth-highest common relationship again to 1995, it was a 2% decline from 2023.
Prime Video’s “Thursday Night time Soccer” package deal was up 11%, however “Monday Night time Soccer” on ESPN and ABC was down 14%. “Monday Night time Soccer” had three fewer simulcasts on ABC, which contributed to the decline.
