Fox Crows About Wild Card Playoff Ratings

Well, when you have the only exciting NFL playoff game of the weekend and it runs into Sunday primetime, you’re going to get a really good audience. Indeed that’s what happened for Fox which at first, was hoping to get Philadelphia-Dallas, but wound up with the best game of Wild Card weekend as the other three games were not all that competitive.

The numbers are staggering, an impressive 21.8 rating and a whopping 36 share. That’s just amazing in this day and age.

PACKERS-CARDINALS NFC WILD CARD GAME POSTS 11-YEAR OVERNIGHT RATINGS HIGH

Highest-Rated Wild Card Game of the Weekend Records 21.8 & Peaks at 27.0

Sunday’s (1/10) NFC WILD CARD GAME on FOX fired an impressive 21.8/36 household rating/share for a record high-scoring Packers-Cardinals overtime contest and is the highest-rated NFL Wild Card game on any network since 1999 (24.2/40, Packers-49ers on FOX).  Last night’s 21.8/36 is a +10% increase over last year’s 19.9/33 for an Eagles-Vikings Wild Card game on FOX, and is the highest-rated game of the weekend. Last night’s game peaked at a 27.0/40 from 7:45-8:00 PM as Arizona forced a fumble and scored the winning touchdown in overtime.

Milwaukee led all local markets with an astonishing 49.1/70, followed by Phoenix with a 38.0/62. New Orleans, home of the NFC’s top seed, placed third (35.9/47). Minneapolis, home of the NFC #2 seed, averaged a 33.5/56.   

The NFC Wild Card game along with the 20th Anniversary Special of “The Simpsons” and the rest of FOX’s Sunday animation programming averaged a preliminary 14.0/21 household overnight (7:00-10:00 PM), doubling second-place ABC (7.0/11), and beating third and fourth place CBS (6.4/10), and NBC’s 4.6/7.

Combined, the NFL POST-SEASON generated 77.6 ratings points in the metered markets this weekend, +12% over last year’s total of 69.5 points, and is the highest total for Wild Card weekend since 1999’s 81.8 total points.

Fox has to be looking forward to the Cowboys-Vikings game next Sunday. The only drawback is that it’s the early game, scheduled for 1 p.m.