The NFL was going to have a hard time matching last year’s conference title games, because much of the eastern part of the country was buried under at or about two feet of snow, or more. This year, it was unseasonably warm throughout much of the country. Against that backdrop, and given the absence of America’s Team from the final four, the NFL did pretty well on Sunday.
Via SportsTVRatings.com, the NFC title game blowout between the Packers and Falcons generated an overnight rating of 27.4 percent on FOX. It was a 13.8-percent reduction from the Patriots and Broncos on CBS a year ago, which racked up a 31.8 overnight rating during a contest that went down to the wire.
The second game on CBS, featuring the Steelers and the Patriots, churned up an overnight rating of 27.6. That’s 2.9 percent more than the 26.8 overnight rating realized by the Cardinals and Panthers snoozer a year ago on FOX in the same window.
Considering the differences in the weather and the overall lack of excitement in both games, that’s not a bad performance.
