Viewership for the opening weekend of the NFL playoffs saw a decline of 9.3% compared to the previous year, marking a more significant decrease than the league’s regular season figures. According to Nielsen and league data, the average audience for the six wild-card games across both television and digital platforms was 28.3 million, down from 31.2 million last season.
The two games held on Saturday maintained their viewership levels, while the contests on Sunday and Monday experienced a drop in numbers. A notable trend observed over the weekend was that viewers are becoming accustomed to watching one of the games via a streaming service. The match between Baltimore and Pittsburgh, which concluded with a 28-14 win for the Ravens, attracted an average of 22.07 million viewers on Amazon Prime Video. This figure set a new record for viewership on Prime, surpassing the 17.29 million who tuned in for the matchup between the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers on December 5.
Comparatively, this year’s figures represented a 3% decrease from the prior season’s 23 million average for the Miami-Kansas City game on Peacock. The most-watched game over the weekend was the Philadelphia Eagles’ 22-10 win over the Green Bay Packers on Fox, which drew an impressive 35.6 million viewers in the late afternoon slot on Sunday. However, this marked an 11% decrease from the previous year’s Packers-Cowboys game that aired during the same time frame.
In one of the playoff’s closest contests, Washington staged a thrilling 23-20 comeback against Tampa Bay on Sunday night, attracting an average of 26.2 million viewers on NBC. This figure represented a 19% decline from last year’s Rams-Lions game. In Saturday’s first encounter, the Houston Texans triumphed over the Los Angeles Chargers with a score of 32-12, averaging 25.6 million viewers—only a 1% dip from last year’s Browns-Texans match airing on NBC.
Buffalo’s convincing 31-7 victory against the Denver Broncos in the initial game on Sunday brought in an average of 31.1 million viewers on CBS, matching the viewership for the Steelers-Bills game from the prior year, which had been delayed due to adverse weather conditions.
The matchup between the Los Angeles Rams and Minnesota, which ended with a score of 27-9 on Monday night, averaged 25.3 million viewers across ESPN and ABC, reflecting a 13% drop from the Eagles-Buccaneers game of the previous year.
Throughout the regular season, the league reported an average viewership of 17.5 million. While this figure ranks as the sixth highest since 1995, it still represented a 2% decline from the 2023 season. Although Prime Video’s “Thursday Night Football” package saw an 11% increase in viewers, “Monday Night Football” on ESPN and ABC experienced a 14% decline. This decrease was partly influenced by having three fewer simulcasts on ABC compared to previous seasons.
