Sunday's Eagles vs. Bears NFC Wildcard game in Chicago received a 22.9 overnight rating, the best for any NBC NFL Wildcard game in 25 years.
NBC: Eagles-Bears 22.9 overnight rating "is best for any NBC NFL Playoff since...2006 & best Wild Card game for NBC in 25 years (23.3/41 for John Elway & Broncos at L.A. Raiders, 1/9/94)."
— John Ourand (@Ourand_SBJ) January 7, 2019
The league said on Monday that there was an average of 28.4 million viewers for the four wild-card round games, which is a 12 percent increase over last year.
The Philadelphia Eagles game against the Chicago Bears on NBC averaged 35.89 million, making it the network's most-watched wild-card game on record. NBC's previous best was the Jan. 3, 1988, game between Seattle and Houston at 35.86 million. The audience for Sunday's game peaked at 45.1 million viewers during the final nine minutes.
Sunday's first game between the Los Angeles Chargers and Baltimore Ravens on CBS averaged 25.4 million.
Fox's telecast of Saturday night's Seattle Seahawks-Dallas Cowboys game averaged 29.5 million while the weekend's first game between the Indianapolis Colts and Houston Texans averaged 22.8 million on ESPN and ABC.
Digital streaming also increased 139 percent with an average minute audience of 496,000.
The @Eagles 44.6/66 local rating on NBC in Philadelphia for yesterday’s NFC Wild Card tops the team’s 37.8 in Philly for last year’s Sat. NFC Divisional Playoff win (also on NBC)Top 10 markets for NBC's Eagles-Bears here: pic.twitter.com/Z7qU9Pz61A
— NBC Sports PR (@NBCSportsPR) January 7, 2019
