Will Kansas City Chiefs-Buffalo Bills AFC Championship Game Smash NFL TV Records?

Among sports watch nerds, a fascinating topic is being discussed this week:

Could the Buffalo Bills-Kansas City Chiefs game set the record for the most-watched AFC Championship game in history?

The record to break: 55.47 million viewers.

You don’t have to go back far for data on the record. That was the crowd for last year’s Chiefs-Ravens game, a 17-10 Kansas City victory that featured stars across the field and the most famous pop singer in the world sitting in a suite at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore.

Last year’s game topped the previous AFC Championship record of 54.85 million viewers for the 2011 AFC Championship between the New York Jets and Pittsburgh Steelers.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about last year’s Chiefs – Ravens viewership was the game ran in the early Sunday NFL window (from 3:03 to 6:12 p.m. ET) as opposed to the later window that traditionally draws more viewers.

The All-Time Viewing Course for any Conference championship games (and also the NFC record) will not be topped:

In 1982, the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers drew 68.7 million Viewers on CBS for the NFC Championship Game (forever remembered for “The Catch” by San Francisco’s Dwight Clark).

Viewership metrics have changed dramatically since then, as have the number of American television households, So comparing viewership from 1982 to today compares Atari to PlayStation 5. If “out-of-home” measurement (which tracks television viewing in public places such as bars, hotels and restaurants) existed in 1982, the viewership number for the 1982 NFC title game might have been 75-80 million.

CBS broadcasts the Bills-Chiefs game at 6:30 PM ET on Sunday and we should get the viewership from the NFL early next week. (Paramount Global has did not renew his contract with Nielsen Target audience – part of a wider dispute between the company and Nielsen – So CBS Sports does not broadcast the data on Monday morning, as it normally would in previous years.)

Below, we make “Bull” and “Bear” cases for a new record:

The Bull case

The Chiefs have surpassed the Cowboys in the short term, as I spelled here, as the league’s Bell Cow for viewership.

The game is played in the most visible linear TV window (late Sunday afternoon/early evening).

The actual sports part and storylines are incredible: Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid are in their seventh consecutive AFC Championship Game; The Bills have a lifetime of heartbreak, including beating Buffalo-leading Kansas City with 13 seconds left in a 2021 divisional game before losing.

There’s also a literal external factor: This week saw historically cold weather, especially in the south. It keeps people at home.

Sport Media Watch founder and editor Jon Lewis believes the matchup and time game will push the game over the AFC Championship Record mark.

“With a better matchup (Chiefs-Bills) and Window (6:30 p.m. ET), I would expect the AFC title game to surpass last year and prevent a blowout,” Lewis said. “Given that the Lions niners had 57 million viewers in that window last year, I think 60 million may well be in play, although I wouldn’t necessarily say that’s the most likely scenario. Somewhere around 58-59 million seems right to me. “

Sports Business Journal TV ratings expert Austin Karp agrees with Lewis: “I think it’s going to be the most-watched AFC championship because it’s the ‘Haile Steinfeld versus Taylor Swift Bowl,'” Karp said. “In all seriousness, this is the matchup everyone wanted, the one you want if you’re a TV executive, and it has that at 18:30 prime-time slot. I think it comes in almost 60 million. “

The Bear case

In short: NFL viewership so far this postseason.

The four NFL Divisional Weekend games averaged 36.6 million viewers, the lowest mark for the second round of the playoffs since 2021, per Karp using Nielsen ratings data. By comparison, last season set a division record with an average of 40 million viewers for the four games.

The Bills-Ravens game didn’t hit the heights you might have expected, drawing 42.2 million viewers in Nielsen ratings data. Yes, that was another 40 million+ broadcast for the NFL, but way down from last year’s Chiefs-Bills game (50.4 million) at the same timeslot.

The only divisional round game up from last year was Chiefs-Texans, which finished with 33.8 million viewers airing on ESPN, ABC, ESPN+, ESPN Deportes and NFL+. It was up four percent from the same day and time slot from 2023.

The verdict

Everything points to a close game. The Chiefs opened as 1.5-point favorites and the line has since shifted half a point in their favor. I think we are seeing a TV viewing recordand as someone who lived in Buffalo for six years, I have to admit that I want the city to wake up happy Monday.

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If you are interested in how The athletic‘s NFL reporters are closing in on their coverage of this week’s Bills-Chiefs game Episode of The Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch features Joe Buscaglia covering the bills for The athleticand Nate Taylor covering the Chiefs.

The two reporters detail what their week will be like leading up to one of the biggest NFL games of the season; The access they get to Allen, Mahomes, Travis Kelce and other star players; What it’s been like for Nate to cover a team that has gone to the AFC Championship game every year, he’s covered; Why this game is in many ways more about the Bills journey than the Chiefs; And how both journalists navigate many areas of responsibility on a Sunday.

(Photo: Michael Owens, left, Aaron M. Sprecher, right / Getty Images)