Viewership for the first weekend of the NFL playoffs dropped by 9.3% compared to last year, a bigger decline than what the league saw during the regular season.
According to the NFL and Nielsen, the six wild-card games averaged 28.3 million viewers across TV and digital platforms, down from 31.2 million last year.
The two games on Saturday had similar viewership, but the Sunday and Monday games saw drops in audience numbers.
One important trend is that fans are getting used to watching one game on a streaming service. The Baltimore Ravens’ 28-14 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, which aired on Amazon Prime Video, averaged 22.07 million viewers.
This set a new record for the most-watched game on Prime, surpassing the previous record of 17.29 million for the Detroit Lions-Green Bay Packers game on Dec. 5.
That was a 3% drop from last year’s average of 23 million viewers for the Miami-Kansas City game on Peacock.
The most-watched game of the weekend was the Philadelphia Eagles’ 22-10 win over the Green Bay Packers on Fox, with an average of 35.6 million viewers in the late afternoon on Sunday. However, this was an 11% decline from the Packers-Cowboys game on Fox at the same time last year.
Washington’s 23-20 win over Tampa Bay on Sunday night, which was the closest game of the wild-card round, averaged 26.2 million viewers on NBC. This was down 19% from last year’s Rams-Lions game.
Houston’s 32-12 victory over the Los Angeles Chargers in Saturday’s first game on CBS averaged 25.6 million viewers, just 1% lower than 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, which was the same as last year’s Steelers-Bills game, even though that game had been delayed to Monday afternoon because of weather.
The Los Angeles Rams’ 27-9 win over Minnesota on Monday night averaged 25.3 million on ESPN and ABC, down 13% from last year’s Eagles-Buccaneers game.
During the regular season, the NFL averaged 17.5 million viewers. This was the sixth-highest average since 1995 but still marked a 2% decline from 2023.
Prime Video’s “Thursday Night Football” saw an 11% increase in viewership, but “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.
