Chiefs, Bills Set AFC Title Game Record With 57.4M Viewers

After conspiring to deliver the biggest regular-season ratings for a Sunday NFL game this season, the Buffalo Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs reconvened last weekend for what would prove to be the most-watched AFC championship game on the books.

According to Nielsen live-plus-same-day data, Kansas City’s 32-29 win over the Bills in the conference title tilt averaged 57.4 million viewers on CBS, edging last year’s short-lived record (55.5 million, Chiefs-Ravens). The nail-biter in Arrowhead Stadium now stands as the third-biggest NFL semifinal of the modern Nielsen era, trailing only the 2010 NFC championship game (Vikings-Saints, 57.9 million viewers) and the 2012 Giants-49ers broadcast (57.6 million), both of which aired on Fox in a time before out-of-home impressions sweetened the TV ratings pot.

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The rivalry between two of the league’s most electrifying quarterbacks has been a godsend for CBS ever since Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes first met up in the 2021 AFC championship game. While that Chiefs’ 38-24 victory averaged a respectable 41.8 million viewers, that broadcast was only the beginning, as the following year saw the two foes scare up 42.7 million viewers in the divisional round, an overtime-enhanced figure that would be topped two years later in another divisional-round showstopper (50.4 million).

In a tune-up for Sunday’s playoff clash, the Bills and Chiefs teamed up in Week 11 to deliver the strongest non-Thanksgiving numbers of the regular season, as Buffalo handed KC its first loss of the 2024-25 campaign in front of a national TV audience of 31.1 million viewers.

While the class of the AFC had America on the edge of its collective seat during the primetime window, the early Commanders-Eagles game on Fox suffered from a comparable lack of suspense. Philly’s 55-23 deconstruction of Washington averaged 44.2 million viewers, marking the NFC’s lowest turnout since the Rams-Saints 2019 title game drew 44.1 million. Oddly enough, that earlier game was a relative barnburner, as Los Angeles fought back from a 13-0 deficit before matters were settled by a 57-yard field goal in overtime.

Per Nielsen, 58% of all U.S. TVs that were in use while the Commanders-Eagles game was underway were tuned to Fox.

Fox faced particularly rough comps with last season’s analogous broadcast, which featured the Detroit Lions’ first trip to the NFC championship game in 32 years. The Lions’ quixotic quest for a Super Bowl date scared up 56.7 million viewers, and now stands as the fourth most-watched Championship Sunday on record.

All told, deliveries for the 12 NFL playoff games were down 8% versus last season’s lineup, as the league’s media partners averaged 35 million viewers per window, which works out to a net loss of 3.1 million impressions per game. The league’s regular-season ratings held up better, with slippage confined to a 2% dip.

Of the top 20 most-watched AFC/NFC championship games on the books, seven were played after Nielsen began blending the out-of-home ratings impressions with its vanilla TV data in the fall of 2020. That more inclusive method of counting the house should give Fox a leg up on Super Sunday; not only have OOH deliveries over the last five years accounted for about 20% of all Super Bowl impressions, but the upcoming Chiefs-Eagles clash is expected to get a further boost care of Nielsen’s expanded OOH panel.

While Nielsen has yet to confirm that it has beefed up its legacy OOH reporting system beyond the 44 media markets it currently monitors, bringing its coverage from approximately 65% of all users to an even 100%, an official announcement is expected to land shortly before Super Bowl LIX kicks off in New Orleans on Feb. 9.

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