The NFL’s wild-card round of playoffs saw a 9.3% drop in viewership compared to last year, a bigger decrease than what was seen during the regular season.
According to Nielsen and the league, the six games of the wild-card round averaged 28.3 million viewers across both television and digital platforms, down from 31.2 million in 2024.
The Saturday games held steady in terms of viewers, while the Sunday and Monday games experienced a decline in their audiences.
One key observation from the weekend is that viewers are getting used to one of the games being streamed. The Baltimore Ravens’ 28-14 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, broadcast on Amazon Prime Video, averaged 22.07 million viewers.
This set a new record for the most-watched game on Prime Video, surpassing the 17.29 million viewers for the Detroit Lions-Green Bay Packers game on December 5.
However, there was a 3% drop compared to last year’s average of 23 million viewers on Peacock for the Miami-Kansas City game.
The most-watched game of the weekend was the Philadelphia Eagles’ 22-10 win over the Green Bay Packers on Fox, which drew an average of 35.6 million viewers in the late afternoon on Sunday. Despite being the most-watched, this was still an 11% drop from last year’s Packers-Cowboys game that aired at the same time.
The Sunday night game, in which Washington defeated Tampa Bay 23-20 in a thrilling comeback, averaged 26.2 million viewers on NBC. It was the closest game of the wild-card round but saw a 19% decline from last year’s Rams-Lions game.
The Houston Texans’ 32-12 victory over the Los Angeles Chargers on Saturday’s first game averaged 25.6 million viewers on CBS, which was just 1% lower than the Browns-Texans game from the previous year.
Buffalo’s 31-7 win over the Denver Broncos in the first Sunday game on CBS saw 31.1 million viewers, matching the viewership of last year’s Steelers-Bills game, which had been delayed to Monday due to weather.
The Monday night game, where the Los Angeles Rams defeated Minnesota 27-9, averaged 25.3 million viewers on ESPN and ABC, a 13% drop from last year’s Eagles-Buccaneers game.
During the regular season, the NFL averaged 17.5 million viewers, which ranked as the sixth-highest viewership since 1995, but still marked a 2% drop from 2023.
Prime Video’s “Thursday Night Football” saw an 11% increase in viewership, while “Monday Night Football” on ESPN and ABC dropped by 14%. The decline in Monday night games was partly due to three fewer simulcasts on ABC this year.
