- Sunday’s broadcast peaked with more than 64 million viewers watching at home
- Viewership is up 17 percent this year compared to last season’s equivalent match
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The Kansas City Chiefs’ conference championship victory over the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday delivered the largest AFC Championship viewership of all time, CBS Sports announced.
On average, more than 55 million viewers tuned in to watch the game, with a peak of more than 64 million.
The record-breaking numbers can be attributed to a few things, with a new fan base hoping to catch a glimpse of Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and his girlfriend Taylor Swift watching from a luxury box in Baltimore.
The Kelce-Swift relationship has boosted ratings for Chiefs games all season long, including more than 50 million viewers for Kansas City’s win over the Buffalo Bills last week.
CBS streaming service Paramount+ had its most-streamed live event ever with consecutive Chiefs games for the second week in a row.
Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs defeated the Ravens on Sunday in front of a huge TV audience
On average, more than 55 million viewers watched Patrick Mahomes and co
The postseason across all rounds averaged 38.5 million viewers (photo Lions vs 49ers)
CBS’s total average postseason viewership of 45.6 million is the highest since 1998, when playoff football first aired on the network.
Meanwhile, the NFL announced that the postseason averaged 38.5 million viewers during the Wild Card, Divisional and Conference Championship rounds, making it the most-watched playoffs ever, up nine percent from last year.
A total of 120.4 million viewers tuned in for Championship Sunday – the highest number of unduplicated viewers since 2016-2017.
Baltimore vs Kansas City was the most-watched non-Super Bowl program on CBS in three decades since the 1994 Winter Olympics aired in primetime.
The previous record for an NFL conference championship game was the AFC Championship between the Steelers and Jets in January 2011, with 54.85 million viewers. Pittsburgh would lose Super Bowl XLV to Green Bay.
The network will air Super Bowl LVIII on February 11, with CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus expecting more than 100 million viewers for the game.
Last year’s Chiefs-Eagles Super Bowl was the most watched ever with an average of 115.1 million viewers.