A week ago, a massive winter storm sparked optimism that viewership for the conference championship games would skyrocket. Relative to those expectations, the actual performance was more like the last shot from a Roman candle.
Via Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal, the average audience for the AFC Championship and NFC Championship fell by 6.7 percent, from 50.8 million in January 2025 to 47.4 million.
The average ends a three-year streak above 50 million as the average audience for both games.
The early game, Patriots-Broncos on CBS, generated the bigger number, at 48.4 million. It was the lowest average for the AFC Championship in four years, when Bengals-Chiefs attracted 47.9 million.
Rams-Seahawks on Fox averaged 46.1 million. While up from 44.2 million who watched the Eagles blow out the Commanders in the early window a year ago, the prime-time game dropped from 57.4 million last year for Bills-Chiefs. It was the lowest NFC Championship audience since Packers-49ers landed at 43 million in January 2020.
Karp’s article mentions “likely suppressed out-of-home viewership” due to the weather. But wouldn’t folks who have watched it at a bar or a restaurant or a friend’s house watched it at home?
The better explanation seems to be this: Jayden Daniels, Jalen Hurts, Josh Allen, and Patrick Mahomes. They were the four quarterbacks last year. Remove star players from the equation (Travis Kelce, too), and the games have less inherent sizzle.