ESPN touts Chiefs-Texans as its most-watched NFL game ever

The first numbers are in for the first two NFL Divisional Round games, and they diverge from last year’s in opposite directions.

In the early slot Saturday, the Kansas City Chiefs’ 23-14 win over the Houston Texans set a new non-Super Bowl NFL record for ESPN and ABC, posting 32.7 million viewers based off Nielsen fast nationals (which is expected to pass 33 million when the final Nielsen numbers are in):

In the late slot Saturday, though, the Washington Commanders’ 45-31 win over the Detroit Lions on Fox drew more viewers (an average of 33.6 million per Nielsen fast nationals and Adobe Analytics), but dropped 10% from last year’s 37.5 million (Nielsen alone) for the San Francisco 49ers’ 24-21 win over the Green Bay Packers last year (also on Fox):

The overall trend here seems a little more positive year-over-year than what we saw in the Wild Card Round last week, which saw most games drop significantly. The 10 percent drop for Fox isn’t ideal, but it’s worth noting that the Packers-49ers clash last year was the most-watched Saturday night program of any kind since 1994. And this was up 17% from the Saturday night game two years ago, where the Philadelphia Eagles beat the New York Giants 38-7.

Meanwhile, the ESPN/ABC number is a record for them, beating the previous non-Super Bowl record (31.8 million viewers) for those networks from the Baltimore Ravens’ 34-10 Divisional Round win over the Texans last year. However, that was the first time ESPN had aired a Divisional Round game, and it was not far above the 31.2 million viewers they got for a Wild Card game (the Dallas Cowboys’ 31-14 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) the previous year. So it’s significant to see another uptick here, especially for a game once again involving the always–Saturday–afternoon Texans.

Numbers for NBC’s Sunday afternoon broadcast of the Eagles’ 28-22 win over the Los Angeles Rams and CBS’ Sunday night broadcast of the Buffalo Bills’ 27-25 win over the Baltimore Ravens are not yet available. Last year’s Sunday Divisional Round games averaged 40.4 million for the Detroit Lions’ 31-23 win over the Buccaneers in the afternoon on NBC, and 50.4 million (a Divisional Round record) for the Chiefs’ 27-24 win over the Bills on CBS at night.