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

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