Ratings Roundup: NFL Divisional Rounds Tackle Highs Across Networks Despite 8% Viewership Decrease

Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press releases and reports around the industry. In this week’s edition, College Football Playoffs National Championship scores over 22 million viewers; Unrivaled opening week sees more than 300,000 viewers; and more.

CFP National Championship Tops College Football Postseason Viewership, But Down From 2024

The College Football Playoff National Championship Presented by AT&T delivered 22.1 Million viewers for ESPN, making it the most-watched game of the inaugural expanded CFP. The broadcast across ESPN’s networks, which peaked with 26.1 million viewers from 8:30-8:45 p.m. ET, was the most-viewed non-NFL sporting event over the past year. In addition, more than half of P18-49 watching TV were tuned into the Championship Game.

However, Monday’s Ohio State’s victory over Notre Dame was down 12% compared to a year ago. The combined 22.1 million viewers across the Nielsen-rated ESPN networks marks fifth-least watched national title game since the debut of the CFP predecessor, the Bowl Championship Series, in 1998 (according to SportsMediaWatch).

Despite the decline, the title game edged out the Ohio State-Oregon Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day to rank as the most-watched game of the college football season — marking the first time in three years and only the second in five that the title game has taken top honors. This year’s game ranks as college football’s fourth least-watched title tilt of the last 10 years.

Last year’s championship game, in which Michigan overpowered Washington by a 34-13 margin, averaged 25.1 million viewers across the ESPN family of networks.

NFL Divisional Ratings Down 8% From record 2024

The four games during NFL Divisional weekend averaged 36.6 million viewers, the lowest mark for the second round of the playoffs since 2021, per fast-national data via SBJ. The Saturday/Sunday matchups were down 8% from around 40 million viewers last year, which was a record for the NFL.

CBS’ Ravens-Bills led the weekend with 42.2 million viewers on Sunday night, down from 50.4 million for Chiefs-Bills last year in the same window. Rams-Eagles on NBC drew 37.8 million on NBC on Sunday afternoon, down 6% from Lions-Bucs in the same window last season. Rams-Eagles was still high enough to be NBC’s fourth-best Divisional game on record. It peaked at 47.5 million viewers from 6:00-6:11pm ET. Saturday’s Chiefs-Texans game was the only window to see a gain during the Divisional round, drawing drew 32.7 million viewers on ABC/ESPN.

Texans at Chiefs Deliver 33.8 Million Viewers, ESPN’s Most-Watched NFL Game Ever

ESPN’s 2025 NFL Divisional Round presentation delivered a record-breaking audience across ESPN platforms, as the Houston Texans at the Kansas City Chiefs (Saturday, Jan. 18, 4:30 p.m. ET) is the company’s most-watched NFL game of all-time. The 33.8 million viewers surpass each NFL on ESPN game, playoffs and regular season, since 1987 (38 seasons), the network’s first year airing NFL games. ESPN’s Texans at Chiefs Divisional matchup aired on ESPN, ABC, ESPN+, ESPN Deportes, and NFL+.

Additional ESPN’s Texans-Chiefs Viewership Highlights:

  • ESPN Up Year-Over-Year: ESPN bested its own audience from the 2024 Divisional Round (Texans at Ravens) with a 4% audience increase, which was also played on the same day and time slot, and earned a then-record audience of 32.3 million viewers.
  • NFL’s Best Divisional Saturday Afternoon Viewership in 10 Seasons: ESPN’s Texans-Chiefs viewership is the NFL’s top audience for a Divisional Saturday afternoon (4:30 p.m. kickoff) in 10 seasons, beginning in January 2016 to present, across all networks.
  • ESPN Delivers Saturday’s Top Peak Audience Across All Networks: ESPN’s audience peaked at 39.5 million viewers (7-7:15 p.m.), the highest peak audience of any network on Saturday, Jan. 18.
  • Disney’s Most-Watched Non-Super Bowl NFL Game: ESPN’s Texans-Chiefs’ 33.8 million viewers marks Disney’s most-watched NFL game, excluding Super Bowls.
    • The audience bested all 25 Disney NFL Playoff games in the previous 29 years, including 14 exclusively on ABC (1996-2005), ten available on ABC and ESPN (2016-24) and one solely on ESPN (2015).
    • The game also surpassed every regular season game exclusively on ABC since 1996.

Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, Lisa Salters Era Deliver ESPN’s Most-Watched Games
ESPN re-writing its own record books has become a modern trend, as each season of the Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, and Lisa Salters era (2022-23, 23-24, and 24-25 seasons) has concluded with ESPN airing its most-watched game of all-time. In that same period, accounting for all games in regular season and postseason, ESPN has aired seven of its eight most-watched games.

ESPN’s Most-Watched NFL Games Ever, Dating Back to 1987

Rank
NFL Season
Date
Game
Viewership
Monday Night Football or Playoff Game
1
2024-25
January 18, 2025
Houston Texans at Kansas City Chiefs
33,761,000
Divisional Playoff
2
2023-24
January 20, 2024
Houston Texans at Baltimore Ravens
32,306,000
Divisional Playoff
3
2022-23
January 16, 2023
Dallas Cowboys at Tampa Bay Buccaneers
31,201,000
Wild Card Playoff
4
2023-24
January 15, 2024
Philadelphia Eagles at Tampa Bay Buccaneers
29,135,000
Wild Card Playoff
5
2023-24
November 20, 2023
Philadelphia Eagles at Kansas City Chiefs
28,962,000
Monday Night Football
6
2023-24
December 25, 2023
Baltimore Ravens at San Francisco 49ers
27,616,000
Monday Night Football
7
2019-20
January 4, 2020
Buffalo Bills at Houston Texans
26,973,000
Wild Card Playoff
8
2023-24
December 30, 2023
Detroit Lions at Dallas Cowboys
26,061,000
Monday Night Football

All ESPN-produced games. All games aired on, at least, ESPN and ABC, except Christmas Day game which was only on ABC. Viewership above does not include ESPN Deportes for historical purposes

Postseason NFL Countdown Draws Nearly Five Million Viewers Leading Into the Game, Up 4% Year-Over-Year
Postseason NFL Countdown aired on ABC and ESPN and drew nearly five million viewers for the 2+ hour pregame show (2-4:15 p.m.). The 4.9 million viewers represent an audience increase year-over-year for the show, which aired in the same time slot and on the same networks last season leading into the Texans and Ravens.

The show featured the Monday Night Countdown crew: Scott Van Pelt with Ryan Clark, Jason Kelce, Marcus Spears, Michelle Beisner-Buck and Adam Schefter, who were joined by guest analyst and Atlanta Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins. For the regular season, Monday Night Countdown was up 5% year-over-year.

Record Breaking Playoff Viewership Adds to ESPN’s Strong 2024-25 Season
ESPN’s record-breaking playoff viewership concludes the company’s 2024-25 season which delivered Monday Night Football’s second most-watched season in the ESPN era, joining the 2023 campaign as the two most- watched MNF seasons (2006 – present). This season, Monday Night Football averaged 15 million viewers a game and reached 112 million fans along the way.

NBC Sports Delivers Its Fourth-Largest NFL Divisional Playoff Audience on Record as Rams-Eagles Averages 37.8 Million Viewers on NBC and Peacock

Sunday’s Los Angeles Rams-Philadelphia Eagles down-to-the-wire matchup in the snow delivered NBC Sports’ fourth-largest NFL Divisional Playoff audience on record, with an average of 37.8 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, NBC Sports Digital platforms and NFL Digital platforms, based on live plus same day custom fast nationals from Nielsen and digital data from Adobe Analytics.
Led by Saquon Barkley, who rushed for 205 yards and two touchdowns, the Eagles won 28-22, but not before stopping the Rams on fourth down deep in Philadelphia territory in the final minute of the fourth quarter. The audience for Rams-Eagles peaked at that key point in the game, with an average of 47.5 million viewers from 6:00-6:11 p.m. ET.
Rams-Eagles (37.8 million viewers) is NBC Sports’ fourth-most watched NFL Divisional Playoff since Nielsen’s institution of the People Meter in 1988 – covering a total of 33 games.
NBC Sports’ five most-watched NFL Divisional Playoff games (since 1988)
Earlier this month, NBC Sports wrapped up its 19th season of Sunday Night Football, which topped all primetime television series in the fall and is once again pacing to finish as primetime’s #1 show in all key metrics for an unprecedented 14th consecutive year. SNF averaged 21.6 million viewers for the 2024 season – the show’s best viewership since 2015 – according to official national live plus same day data released by Nielsen, and digital data from Adobe Analytics.

FOX Sports Delivers 33.6 Million Viewers for Commanders-Lions NFC Divisional Game

  • 33.6 million viewers tuned in across FOX, FOX Deportes and FOX Sports streaming platforms for Washington’s Divisional upset over Detroit
    • Fourth most-watched Saturday NFC Divisional game in FOX history
    • Audience projected to peak with 35,692,000 viewers from 9:30 – 9:45 PM ET

Unrivaled Debut Bests Average WNBA Regular Season Ratings

Unrivaled’s opening weekend averaged 313,000 viewers in its opening game between Stewart’s Mist Basketball Club and Collier’s Lunar Owls Basketball Club, TNT Sports said Tuesday. The new winter 3×3 professional league said viewership peaked at 364,000 viewers during its first game. Unrivaled’s second game Friday between Rhyne Howard’s Vinyl Basketball Club and Chelsea Gray’s Rose Basketball Club averaged 311,000 viewers. Both are the most-watched women’s basketball games ever to air on TNT Sports. And according to Sports Media Watch, the opening games outpaced last year’s average WNBA regular-season game on cable by 50 percent, excluding games involving Caitlin Clark (who is not playing in Unrivaled).

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