NFL Ratings Roundup: Cowboys-Buccaneers Breaks 31.2 Million Viewers for Most Watched Playoff Game in Walt Disney Companys History By SVG Staff
Friday, January 20, 2023 - 12:16 pm
Print This Story
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press releases and reports around the industry. In this week's edition, the Walt Disney Company delivers the most watched playoff game since 1999, ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown is the most-watched season since 2019, and more.
ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown Delivers Most-Watched Season Since 2019, as ESPN's NFL Studio Shows Achieve 2022-23 Regular Season Viewership Successes The 2022 NFL regular season saw ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown deliver its most-watched season since 2019, one of several shows of strengths across ESPN's NFL studio programming. Monday Night Countdown, NFL Live, NFL Rewind and NFL Matchup all increased or maintained their audience pace from the 2021 regular season, and NFL Primetime remained a leader on ESPN , an impressive feat for a portfolio of shows which also had documented viewership success last season. ESPN's regular season success was evident throughout the 18 weeks, as documented at the halfway point of the year.
Sunday NFL Countdown Up 7% Year-Over-Year and Up Double-Digits in Young Adults
Sunday NFL Countdown (Sundays, 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. ET) averaged 1,240,000 viewers this season, the weekly pre-game show's best viewership since 2019. Year-over-year, the Sunday three-hour studio programming increased its viewership by a healthy 7% (1,160,000 viewers in 2021). Examining demos, viewership among adults 18-24 was up 13% and female viewership was up 8%.
Monday Night Countdown Delivers Most-Watched Episode Since 2018
Monday Night Countdown (Mondays, 6 - 8 p.m.) delivered the show's most-watched Monday episode since 2018 when the December 26 edition averaged 2,000,000 viewers. For the entire season, the pre-game show maintained a strong audience from last year, averaging 1.5 million viewers, in line with last year's audience. Looking at specific demos, the show was up 4% in adults 18-24.
NFL Live Matches Best Viewership Since 2016, Continues Multiple Year Momentum
NFL Live (weekdays, 4-5 p.m.) continued its breakneck viewership accolades this season, as the daily news and information show averaged 423,000 viewers per episode. The viewership matches the show's best season audience in five years (2016) and continues the show's viewership successes from 2021 and 2020. In November, NFL Live averaged 452,000 viewers per episode, marking the show's third best monthly audience since December 2018.
NFL Rewind, NFL Matchup Both Grow Audiences
NFL Rewind (Mondays, 3-4 p.m.) raised its own bar again, delivering the highlight and recap show's best regular season audience in its three full seasons. The weekly show averaged 373,000 viewers, up from the 2021 season (370,000 viewers).
NFL Matchup earned its best audience since 2019, as the weekly show averaged 267,000 viewers. The audience was up 4% year over year. The most-viewed episode was Nov. 19 with 474,000 viewers.
NFL Primetime Leads the Way on ESPN
NFL Primetime (Sundays, 7:30 p.m. ET and on-demand) was the top original studio program on ESPN during the season.
The Dallas Cowboys at Tampa Bay Buccaneers Super Wild Card Finale is a Record Breaker for The Walt Disney Company and ESPN ESPN's presentation of Dallas Cowboys-Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday, Jan. 16 (8:15 p.m. ET) is a record breaker for The Walt Disney Company and ESPN. The viewership was elevated to 31.2 million with final Nielsen viewership reporting (ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, ESPN and ESPN Deportes), driving the Super Wild Card finale to become the most-watched NFL Playoff game in Disney's history and easily surpassing any NFL Playoff game that has aired, in part, on ESPN. Disney's first NFL Playoff game followed the 1996 season.
This final viewership further elevates the status of the game, which previously was Disney's second most-watched NFL Playoff game since 1999 based on Nielsen fast nationals - as reported on January 17.
The viewership of over 31 million viewers bested all 22 Disney NFL Playoff games in the previous 27 years, including 14 exclusively on ABC (1996-2005), seven available on ABC and ESPN (2016-22) and one solely on ESPN (2015). The viewership is up 35 percent from Disney's Super Wild Card game concluding the 2021-22 season (Arizona Cardinals at Los Angeles Rams), the first Monday night Super Wild Card game. This weekend, across all networks, Cowboys-Buccaneers was most-watched primetime NFL Playoff game.
The Cowboys-Buccaneers audience peaked at 36.4 million viewers late in the first half (9-9:15 p.m. ET).
This exceptional number proves once again that live sports are unequaled in amassing large audiences, said Jimmy Pitaro, Chairman, ESPN and Sports Content. The success is also a clear reflection of how ESPN, working alongside the NFL and our colleagues at Disney, can help attract fans, build anticipation, and expand our reach. Even without a dramatic ending, it was an extraordinarily memorable evening.
The Super Wild Card finale represented Disney's first playoff game with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman on the call. Lisa Salters was the sideline reporter, calling her ninth playoff game for Disney.
Cowboys-Buccaneers Among Disney's Most-Watched NFL Games Ever
The Cowboys-Buccaneers matchup is also the most-watched NFL game presented by The Walt Disney Company since Super Bowl XL in February 2006. Excluding TWDC's three Super Bowls, Cowboys-Buccaneers represents the second most-watched NFL game in Disney's history.
Please note: Disney's ownership of ABC/ESPN began February 1996
Disney has aired Super Bowl XXXIV, Super Bowl XXXVI, and Super Bowl XL.
Monday Night Countdo
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
NFL Ratings Roundup: Cowboys-Buccaneers Breaks 31.2 Million Viewers for Most Watched Playoff Game in Walt Disney Companys History By SVG Staff 
