NFL Divisional Playoff Viewership Drops Despite Plenty of Drama

Plenty of drama in both of Sunday’s NFL divisional-round playoff games was not enough to prevent an extension of the league’s downward slide in its viewership. 

The evening AFC matchup on CBS between the Ravens and Bills—a high-octane clash between NFL MVP favorites Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, the most-anticipated game of the weekend, and won by Buffalo 27–25—drew an average of 42.2 million, according to preliminary data, down 16% from the comparable game last year. The game was the worst-performing divisional playoff contest in that slot since 2021. 

This game, like many others in the NFL this season, went up against a rather difficult comparison from 2023, as last year’s divisional matchup in the same window, between the Chiefs and Bills, drew an average of 50.4 million, setting a record as the most-watched NFL divisional playoff game ever. Even with the year-over-over decline, the Ravens-Bills game established a new mark as the league’s most-watched contest of the 2024 season—though that’s now poised to be topped by the upcoming conference title games Sunday.

The Sunday afternoon game between the Rams and Eagles on NBC, meanwhile, posted a total audience delivery of 37.8 million viewers, down 6% from a comparable 40.4 million for a Buccaneers-Lions game in that slot last year. 

The game, won by the Eagles 28–22, still represented the fourth-best divisional playoff rating in NBC history, dating to Nielsen’s 1988 introduction of its People Meter measurement system and covering 33 such games on the network over that time. 

The Sunday results followed prior viewership attrition seen during the NFL’s regular season, the wild-card round, and earlier in the divisional playoff round.