Divisional weekend averages 37.1 million viewers

NFC Divisional Playoffs - Dallas Cowboys v San Francisco 49ers
Getty Images

The four games of the divisional round weekend performed very well, as they always do.

This year, they performed better than any quartet of final-eight postseason games, other than two of them — 2012 (the 2011 season) and 2015 (the 2014 season).

The average audience, per the league, was 37.1 million. It’s an 11-percent increase in audience size from the five-year average for 2018 through 2022.

Leading the way was Cowboys-49ers, with 45.7 million average viewers on Fox. That’s a seven percent increase over last year’s Sunday night game (Bills-Chiefs) and the second biggest divisional round audience, behind only the January 2017 game between the Packers and Cowboys, which drew 48.5 million.

Bengals-Bills on Sunday afternoon racked up 39.3 million for CBS, a two-percent drop from Rams-Bucs in 2022.

Jaguars-Chiefs on NBC drew 34.3 million, an 11-percent bump over Bengals-Titans a year ago.

Bringing up the year was the worst game of the weekend. Saturday night’s 38-7 blowout of the Giants by the Eagles mustered an audience of only 28.6 million, a sharp 22-percent drop from last year’s Saturday night game between the 49ers and Packers.

26 responses to “Divisional weekend averages 37.1 million viewers

  1. Surprising to see Giants / Eagles that low considering the size of both markets.

    Then again, it’s likely that many people in the bigger market turned off their TVs at halftime…

  2. Jaguars and Chiefs, two of the smaller markets making the biggest leap. Amazing what talented young qbs can do for a franchise.

  3. 45.7 million watched 49ers-Cowboys.
    10 million watched to cheer on the Cowboys.
    10 million watched to cheer on the 49ers.
    25.7 million watched to cheer on a Cowboys loss.

  4. One of the worst divisional rounds I can remember. Last year’s was spectacular – all 4 games were great.

    This year, the Jags kept that game kind of interesting. I guess Cowboys/Niners was close, but it wasn’t a good game.

    I was sure Bills/Bengals would be a barnburner. Still so disappointed about that game. The Bengals made the Bills look very far away from really contending.

  5. Players could suffer six concussions on every play, and the NFL would continue to prosper with those ratings numbers.

  6. Jags/Chiefs was the only really competitive game. Bills, Giants ,and Cowboys forgot to show up.

  7. There wasn’t a TV in the Philly area that wasn’t tuned to the Cowboys-49ers on Sunday, that I can assure you.

  8. The first moonwalk in 1969 had 110M viewers in USA. Seems the NFL has a ways to go to catch NASA.

  9. Remember all the “Mark Cuban is right” dopes on this sight?
    ==========

    *here*

    We’re about to see neutral site Title games.

    We’ll see an overseas Super Bowl in our lifetime.

    Cuban couldn’t have been more right.

  10. The Cowboys and 49ers have global fan bases. I knew that game was going to be a ratings bonanza. You’re taking about two HUGE fanbases.

  11. They can generate rating averages and calculate viewership totals in the tens of millions nationwide almost instantly, but still can’t figure out what a catch is or where they left all that 2015 psi data. It’s almost like they are liars.

  12. Turned the Giants-Eagles game off at halftime. That Giants offense and Daniel Jones aren’t built for big comebacks. That game was over and the ratings reflect that.

  13. mrjoseph says:
    January 24, 2023 at 1:24 pm
    The first moonwalk in 1969 had 110M viewers in USA. Seems the NFL has a ways to go to catch NASA.

    ———————————————

    You are talking about Human beings landing on THE MOON, THE MOOONNNN! Something weve been staring up at for what…1.5mil years as a species? Not quite the same draw of a football game.

  14. That is very good seeing as they had one regional/division game that most didn’t care about.

  15. What would the ratings have been on Amazon or another streaming service ? A whole lot less I would imagine. Keep that in mind NFL.

  16. I’m a Giants fan and even I knew their game wasn’t going to be good, I was surprised they put it on late.
    The Giants were a nice surprise, but they weren’t going to win that game. I actually made a few bucks from friends…

  17. Love the lowest populated cities destroyed Philly and NY. Maybe the league will finally see small town America deserves more attention.

  18. The games were mostly awful my tv was on but I wasn’t watching much ratings can be very misleading.

  19. Jerry Jones has done a lot of good for the Cowboys and NFL, but apparently he is not going to win another Super Bowl in his lifetime.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to leave a comment. Not a member? Register now!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.