Chiefs

How many watched the Chiefs-Bills playoff thriller? Another record-setting number

The Chiefs-Bills game in the NFL playoffs’ Divisional Round on Sunday provided great theater ... and ratings.

CBS announced Tuesday that the Chiefs’ 27-24 triumph attracted 50.4 million viewers, a record for a Divisional Round game.

The audience peaked at 56 million. It was the most-watched program on any network since Super Bowl LVII last February, when the Chiefs defeated the Philadelphia Eagles with 115 million viewers.

The previous record for a what amounts to an NFL quarterfinal playoff game was 48.5 million viewers for a Cowboys-Packers game in January 2017.

The recent Chiefs-Bills playoff games also have delivered massive audiences. Some 42.7 million watched the Chiefs’ overtime victory in the 2021 season’s Divisional Round — the famed “13 seconds” game — and 41.8 million watched the AFC Championship game between the teams in the previous season.

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Blair Kerkhoff
The Kansas City Star
Blair Kerkhoff has covered sports for The Kansas City Star since 1989. He was elected to the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023.
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