NFL sees increased viewership for wild-card round, eyes more for divisional games

Key Highlights

• Nielsen began using its Big Data + Panel methodology for all events last September with the start of the current television season. Earlier this year, Nielsen began measuring out-of-home viewers for all states but Hawaii and Alaska, along with including data from smart TVs along with cable and satellite set-top boxes. Nielsen previously measured only the top 44 media markets, which covered 65% of the country.“It was a great weekend of football all around,” said Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s executive vice president of media distribution.
• “Every year, there's a new set of stars and players emerging.
• You have (New England's) Drake Maye, who's a potential MVP and on the other end you have an established star like (Los Angeles Rams QB) Matthew Stafford, who may be the other MVP favorite playing a heck of a game with the fourth-quarter comeback.”Last year's four divisional matchups averaged 37.1 million viewers.
• The record for the NFL's second weekend of the playoffs is 40 million, set two years ago.
• That was led by the Kansas City-Buffalo matchup, which averaged 50.4 million, making it the most watched divisional or wild-card game on record. Fox averaged 37.5 million for the Green Bay-San Francisco Saturday night divisional matchup two years ago, which was the most-watched Saturday NFL playoff game on record. Minneapolis ICE shooting live updates: Fed probe for mayor, governor, officials say16 minutes agoMajority of Americans say ICE agent’s shooting of Good was unjustified, inappropriateJan 15, 5:21 PMState Department warns US citizens to leave VenezuelaJan 11, 10:28 PMThe 49ers will face the Seattle Seahawks on Saturday night, which drew some criticism in some quarters because they played in Philadelphia in the late afternoon Sunday window and have a short week.