Saturday night’s playoff game was compelling, but a matchup of Baltimore and Nashville simply won’t generate the same eyeballs as an L.A. team versus America’s Team.
Via Austin Karp of Sports Business Daily, the average audience for Titans-Ravens on Saturday night dropped by nearly four million viewers in comparison to last year’s Saturday night divisional-round game between the Cowboys and Rams on FOX. Still, 29.4 million is a solid audience, up considerably from the 26.7 million who watched on Saturday night on CBS two years ago, when the Titans faced the Patriots.
In the early window on NBC, Vikings-49ers averaged 29.3 million viewers, up from 29.1 million in the same spot last year (Colts-Chiefs) and 27.1 million two years ago (Falcons-Eagles).
Sunday’s numbers are coming later today, and they should be higher in both windows, given the star power involved, the teams, and the reality that more people will watch football on a Sunday than on a Saturday.