The Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills made NFL history last Sunday, which became the most-watched NFL Divisional Playoff game ever. More than 50 million fans tuned in to watch the Chiefs narrowly secure their spot in the AFC Championship.
The game aired on CBS and streamed on Paramount+. It peaked at 56 million viewers. The game saw a 10% increase in viewership from last year’s game between the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers, which netted 45.7 million. Sunday’s game was also the most-viewed program across all networks since last year’s Super Bowl, which saw the Chiefs defeat the Philadelphia Eagles.
The previous record for the most watched game was in January of 2017 when 48.5 million people tuned in to watch the Dallas Cowboys take on the Packers.
This marks Paramount+’s most streamed live event ever, coming off of the most streamed NFL season on the platform. Last weekend also marked a major viewer milestone for NBC Sports, which saw its most-watched divisional playoff game since 1994 when the Detriot Lions and Tampa Bay Buccaneers secured the second-highest viewership among NFL games. An average of 40.4 million viewers tuned in through NBC TV, Peacock, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL Digital platforms. It peaked at 49.1 million viewers during the Buccaneer’s final drive to tie the score, while more than 3 million streamed the game on Peacock.
Sports packages are trending on streaming as more platforms take advantage of lucrative licensing deals to secure audiences through their love of sports. Cable TV steadily trudges along in large part thanks to sports coverage, but streaming platforms like Prime Video, Hulu, and Paramount+ have been increasingly enticing viewers by by offering live coverage of games and pre/post game coverage. On Tuesday, Netflix jumped into live sports coverage as well when it announced live WWE RAW matches will join the platform in 2025.
Other divisional games also drew large crowds. More than 31.8 million tuned in to watch the Ravens defeat the Houston Texans on ESPN and ABC, while 37.5 million watched the 49ers comeback win against the Packers on Fox.
With only three games left this season, and two of them airing on CBS, there’s still time for more record-breaking audiences tallies. This Sunday, the network will host the AFC Championship and on February 11 the station will broadcast the Super Bowl in 1080p HDR and 4K for the first time.