Ratings for NFL
conference games soar
AFC and NFC title games up 34 percent over last year
By Toni Fitzgerald
Jan 26, 2010
If there were any sliver of a doubt that the Super Bowl is on pace for record viewership, it was erased Sunday.
The AFC and NFC title games combined for the most-watched conference championship weekend in 28 years, with their combined average up 34 percent over last year.
Fox's NFC championship, which aired in primetime, averaged 57.9 million total viewers, according to Nielsen, becoming the most-watched non-Super Bowl program on television since the "Seinfeld" finale in 1998, which drew 76.3 million viewers.
It marked the most-watched conference championship game since the 1982 contest between the Dallas Cowboys and the San Francisco 49ers drew 68.7 million.
The New Orleans Saints defeated the Minnesota Vikings 31-28 to earn their first-ever Super Bowl bid.
Meanwhile, CBS's afternoon contest between the Indianapolis Colts and surprising New York Jets averaged 46.9 million total viewers, the most-watched AFC championship game in 24 years.
The AFC and NFC games combined to average 52.9 million viewers, making them the most-watched since the 1982 contests and putting CBS on track for a superlative Super Bowl.
NFL ratings have been booming all year, and the divisional playoffs last weekend were the most watched in 16 years, while the wild card games the previous weekend were the most watched in more than a decade.
Though Vikings quarterback Brett Favre, one of the most popular athletes in all of sports, was no doubt a major draw in Sunday's game, CBS has a compelling matchup to hype for its Feb. 7 game.
Last year's Super Bowl drew a record 98.7 million total viewers. This could be the year it tops 99 million.
The Colts, who beat the Jets 30-17, have perhaps the best quarterback in the NFL, Peyton Manning. He is hugely popular with advertisers, with a slew of endorsement contracts, and played in one of the most-watched Super Bowls ever three years ago, when the Colts' victory drew 93.2 million viewers.
The Saints are a sentimental favorite, symbolic of New Orleans' gradual return from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, and they have a fiercely loyal fan base. Eighty-two percent of New Orleans households tuned in to Sunday's conference championship, setting a new record for a local market.
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