You want to talk about why the National Football League is king? Look at the ratings for the NFC Wild Card Playoff Game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Green Bay Packers. Fox saw the best ratings for an NFL Wild Card Game dating back to … wait for it … it’s truly mind boggling … 1988. Fox in its own press release calls the 49ers-Packers rating “record-setting” and “stratospheric.”
The final rating for the game was 25.8/41 and the viewership? The viewership numbers resulted in an astounding 47.1 million people watching the game. The rating jumped 20% from last year’s Seattle-Washington which occupied the same 4:40 p.m. time slot. And the viewership was up 24%.
Take a look at the Fox press release.
49ERS – PACKERS RANKS AS HIGHEST-RATED NFL WILDCARD GAME IN MORE THAN 25 YEARS; OVER 47 MILLION WATCH
Yesterday’s 2014 NFC Wildcard playoff game between the San Francisco 49ers and Green Bay Packers, decided on a field goal as the game clock expired, was record-setting, posting stratospheric audience figures for FOX. The game notched a tremendous 25.8/41 household rating/share, with 47.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated NFL Wildcard Playoff Game on any network since at least 1988, six years before the NFL came to FOX. Year-to-year, the game is +20% in rating and +24% in audience over last year’s match-up between Seattle and Washington (21.5/36, 38.1 million viewers).
Additional highlights are as follows:
- Ranks as the highest-rated and most-watched telecast of any kind since last year’s Super Bowl
- Projects to easily rank as the highest-rated and most-watched playoff game of the weekend
- Posted significant female demographic increases, all of which are FOX’s best-ever for an NFC Wildcard Game:
- W18-34 — +27% (9.8 vs. 7.7)
- W18-49 — +23% (11.3 vs. 9.2)
- W25-54 — +24% (13.3 vs. 10.7)
- Average viewership beats every NFC Divisional Playoff Game FOX Sports has ever broadcast and 13 of 19 NFC Championship Games
- FOX’s 7th most-watched non-Super Bowl event ever
- Home Markets: San Francisco — 40.0/74; Milwaukee — 58.0/80
- Game opened at 22.0/38 with 38.7 million viewers at 4:42 PM ET; peaked in the final half hour at 28.9/42 with over 53.4 viewers from 7:30-7:51 PM ET
Source: Nielsen Media Research
Do you want another Wild Card ratings post? Yes, you do. And I’ll have NBC’s final ratings for its last Wild Card Saturday doubleheader coming up.
