NFL TV Ratings Slump Appears Over

That nasty NFL ratings slump that dogged 2016 and 2017 is history, reports The NYPost.

After solid improvement during the 2018 regular season, the NFL playoffs this weekend went out with a big ratings bang, setting the stage for what experts predict will be the most-watched — and most profitable — Super Bowl ever.

Sunday’s Patriots-Chiefs game drew 53.9 million viewers to CBS — a whopping 27 percent increase that made the AFC Championship Game the most watched NFL contest outside of Super Bowls in five years.

Earlier in the day on Fox, the Los Angeles Rams’ defeat of the New Orleans Saints drew 44.1 million viewers — a gain of 4.3 percent that gave Fox its most-watched broadcast since the Super Bowl in 2017.

Now, after a regular NFL season with the best offensive stats in memory, followed by a Championship Sunday that saw both games go into overtime, league watchers are predicting unprecedented ratings and advertising rates.

The big game, which on Feb. 3 will pit the New England Patriots against the Los Angeles Rams on CBS, caps a season that has already seen a remarkable comeback.

In a Tuesday update, CFRA analyst Tuna Amobi reported that regular season NFL games on CBS, Fox, NBC and ESPN averaged 15.8 million viewers a game — up 5 percent from 2017.

The increase reversed two years of declines as the league struggled with the national anthem protests and concussion controversies. In 2016 and 2017, average viewership for NFL regular season games plunged 17 percent, Amobi said.

The current rebound, in contrast, has been an especially strong postseason. The league’s “Wild Card Weekend” in early January boosted average viewership for those four games to 28.4 million — up 12 percent from the same weekend a year ago.

The divisional playoffs on Jan. 12 and Jan. 13 added to the momentum, while last weekend’s conference championships took viewership to near record levels.

One sports-media veteran said the “big bounce-back” is mostly due to new rules and new stars like the Rams’ Jared Goff and the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes — a combination that’s producing “high-scoring games that are compelling to watch.”

Advertisers, like viewers, have noticed.

The price for a 30-second Super Bowl spot has reached a record $5.24 million, according to Amobi, who added that most of CBS’ ad inventory for the event was sold out by mid-January.