NFL’s wild-card round averages 28.3 million viewers, a 9.3% decline from last year

Viewer audiences for the first weekend of the NFL playoffs were down 9.3% from last year, a bigger decline than what the league experienced during the regular season.

According to the league and Nielsen, the six wild-card round games averaged 28.3 million viewers on television and digital platforms, compared to 31.2 million last year.

The two Saturday games held steady, while the Sunday and Monday matchups saw declines.

The biggest takeaway from the weekend is that audiences have acclimated to one of the games being on a streaming service. Baltimore’s 28-14 victory over Pittsburgh averaged 22.07 million on Amazon Prime Video. It is a record for the most-watched game on Prime, surpassing the 17.29 million for the Detroit Lions-Green Bay Packers game on Dec. 5.

It was a 3% drop from last year’s 23 million average on Peacock for the Miami-Kansas City matchup.

The most-viewed game of the weekend was Philadelphia’s 22-10 victory over Green Bay on Fox, which averaged 35.6 million in the Sunday late afternoon window. However, that was an 11% decline from the Packers-Cowboys game on Fox that aired at a similar time.

Washington’s 23-20 Sunday night comeback win over Tampa Bay — the most competitive game of the wild-card round — averaged 29 million on NBC. That was down 19% from last year’s Rams-Lions game.

Houston’s 32-12 win over the Los Angeles Chargers in Saturday’s first game on CBS averaged 25.6 million, only 1% off from the Browns-Texans game on NBC last year.

Buffalo’s 31-7 blowout of Denver in Sunday’s first game averaged 31.1 million on CBS. That matched the audience from last year’s Steelers-Bills game, which was delayed until Monday afternoon due to weather.

The Los Angeles Rams 27-9 rout of Minnesota on Monday night averaged 25.3 million on ESPN and ABC, down 13% from last year’s Eagles-Buccaneers game.

The league averaged 17.5 million during the regular season. While it was the sixth-highest average dating back to 1995, it was a 2% decline from 2023.

Prime Video’s “Thursday Night Football” package was up 11%, but “Monday Night Football” on ESPN and ABC was down 14%. “Monday Night Football” had three fewer simulcasts on ABC, which contributed to the decline.

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl