Huge TV audience shared pain of Chiefs’ loss in AFC Championship
The AFC Championship Game at Arrowhead Stadium on CBS drew a huge TV audience and Kansas City reinforced its position as one of the NFL’s top local markets.
The Patriots’ victory over the Chiefs drew a 31.2 overnight national rating on CBS, the highest for an NFL conference title game in three years. According to Nielsen, the total audience of 53.9 million viewers made it the second most-watched AFC Championship Game in 42 years.
Kansas City led local markets with a 60.1 rating, the highest local rating for a conference championship game since 2010.
The mark was about the same as the Royals’ World Series-clinching Game 5 triumph over the Mets in 2015 (60.0).
The Rams-Saints NFC Championship Game on Fox drew a 27.1 national overnight rating.
Both games provided compelling content with the Patriots and Rams winning in overtime. The Super Bowl on Feb. 3 will be broadcast by CBS. The Patriots opened as a 2 1/2-point favorite to win their sixth Super Bowl in the Tom Brady/Bill Belichick era.
This story was originally published January 21, 2019 at 12:40 PM.