NFL Conference Title Game Ratings Slip Despite Strong Season

The NFL’s run of big viewership this season ran into a much more mixed scenario for Sunday’s conference championship games.

CBS said late Tuesday that it averaged 48.6 million viewers for the Patriots’ 10–7 win over the Broncos in the AFC title game, up 10% from last year’s NFC championship clash in the same Sunday afternoon window. The dramatic contest peaked with an audience of 57.8 million viewers, making it the most-watched playoff game this season. 

The New England–Denver game also completed what was the most-watched NFL season ever for CBS, with a per-game average of 23.1 million viewers.

Fox, meanwhile, said it averaged 46.1 million viewers for the Seahawks’ 31–27 win over the Rams in the NFC championship, down 20% from the AFC title game that held the Sunday evening broadcast window last year and set several audience records. The NFC broadcast peaked in the fourth quarter with an audience of 49.7 million. 

The collective average of about 47.4 million viewers for the two games was down 7% from last year and is the least-watched title game on a Sunday since 2021. 

Notably, both conference championship games drew a smaller audience than the Thanksgiving Day matchup between the Chiefs and Cowboys—both non-playoff teams—that averaged 57.2 million viewers and set a league record in the regular season.

Viewership trends for the two NFL conference championship games were likely influenced—both positively and negatively—by a massive winter storm last weekend that also caused numerous game postponements and cancellations in sports. Snowy weather also hit Denver during the latter portion of the Patriots-Broncos game. While football viewership historically has grown during periods of inclement weather, the particularly deep impact of the latest storm also cut into group and out-of-home viewing that is core to NFL audience patterns.

Additionally, the NFC broadcast also saw a geographic drag from the matchup of two NFC West division rivals playing for the third time this season

Still, a Big Season

The more disparate numbers for the networks and the league follow a dominant run of audience increases seen during the divisional playoff round, the wild-card round, the regular season, and on streaming. 

Like the earlier parts of the 2025 NFL season, the conference championship round was the first to benefit from the arrival of new and expanded Nielsen methodologies to track audiences, notably Big Data + Panel.

The Seahawks and Patriots are now set to compete in Super Bowl LX from Levi’s Stadium. That game, to be shown on NBC, will look to challenge, if not surpass, the U.S. television viewership record of an average of 127.7 million viewers set last year for Super Bowl LIX on Fox.

The Comcast-owned NBC is leaning in to its upcoming Super Bowl LX coverage by combining much of its promotion and ad sales for the event with coverage next month of the 2026 Winter Olympics and NBA All-Star Game. The Super Bowl will also represent one of, if not the single largest, event ever on its Peacock streaming service.