NFL Wild Card Game Viewership Across Pay TV Sees Record Viewership

Dan Rayburn | Wednesday January 17, 2024 | 01:07 PM | Comments (0)

NFL Wild Card game viewership numbers across NBC, FOX, ESPN, and Peacock are out and pay TV saw record viewership. For all the recent talk of NFL streaming, digital viewership makes up less than 10% of all viewers when the game isn’t exclusive to a streaming-only platform. Pay TV still generates the largest viewership for NFL games and sports.

  • 🏈 FOX, 43.4 million (peak viewers) FOX Sports NFL Wild Card game on Sunday, January 14, between the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys peaked at 43.4 million viewers, making it the best Wild Card game for FOX since 2015. FOX does not break out pay TV versus digital viewership for any of their NFL games.
  • 🏈 NBC, 38.3 million (peak viewers) NBC Sports NFL Wild Card game on Sunday, January 14, between the Detroit Lions and Los Angeles Rams peaked at 38.3 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL Digital platforms. Across Peacock, NBC Sports Digital platforms, and NFL Digital platforms, the AMA for the game was 3.9 million viewers.
  • 🏈 ESPN, 28.6 million (viewers) ESPN’s NFL Wild Card game on Monday, January 15, between the Philadelphia Eagles and Tampa Bay Buccaneers generated more than 28.6 million viewers across ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, ESPN+ and NFL+, ESPN’s second most-watched NFL playoff game. ESPN does not break out pay TV versus digital viewership for any of their NFL games.
  • 🏈 Peacock, 24.6 million (peak viewers) Peacock’s NFL Wild Card game on Saturday, January 13, between the Chiefs and Dolphins peaked at 24.6 million viewers across Peacock, NBC stations in Miami and Kansas City and on mobile with NFL+. Peacock had 16.3 million concurrent devices.

Some key takeaways from the NFL and Peacock media call from January 2024:

  • The Wild Card game was not part of NBCU’s overall NFL package. NBC Sports executive said, “This is not something for NBC. We bid on it for Peacock separately.”
  • NFL’s EVP of Media Distribution: “As it relates to the Wild Card game exclusively, we’re excited to continue the conversation. This is a deal for this year, but it’s an NFL Playoff game. I expect there will be a lot of interest in it.”
  • Media question for NFL exec. How much will viewership determine whether you would continue going forward with a game to a streamer in the postseason? Answer: “Certainly, viewership will be one of them. That will be just one of the criteria we think about and look at the opportunities we have going forward.”
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