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


NFL

BY JOE REEDY Updated 4:36 AM GMT+5, January 16, 2025 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.