The NFL’s TV ratings crept slightly upward for the 2019 season, but that success did not carry over into the conference championship games on Sunday.
The Kansas City Chiefs toppled the Tennessee Titans 35-24, but the game brought in seven percent fewer viewers than the same championship game earned last year. According to the numbers reviewed by The Wrap, last weekend’s game earned 41.1 million viewers on Sunday, seven percent less than the 44.4 million realized by last year’s New Orleans Saints and Los Angeles Rams game.
As Sports Business Journal reporter Austin Karp tweeted: “Chiefs-Titans may have been least-viewed AFC Championship since 2009, but Kansas City market was strong, drawing a 55.7 local rating for the game (46.0 in Nashville).”
But, while it earned more total viewers compared to the Titans-Chiefs game, the other game that determined who was headed to the Super Bowl fell even more over last year’s numbers.
Fox’s broadcast of the San Francisco 49ers and the Green Bay Packers game tumbled a whopping 20 percent over the 2018 season. The 49ers-Packers game averaged 43.56 million viewers, but that is a serious loss compared to the 54.2 million viewers the same championship game received in 2018.
The fall in ratings for the two championship games notwithstanding, overall, the NFL finally saw a small rise in ratings after spending the 2019 season pushing left-wing politics into the background. As a result, the league found a five percent bump in TV ratings.
The 49ers and Chiefs will meet in the Super Bowl on Feb. 2 and will be broadcast on Fox.
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