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Rewrite the Record Books: Texans at Chiefs Deliver 32.7 Million Viewers, ESPN's Most-Watched NFL Game Ever
Viewership Expected to Exceed 33 Million Viewers When Nielsen Reports Final Audience
Audience Already Surpasses Every NFL Game - Regular Season or Playoffs - on ESPN Dating Back to 1987
Across All Networks, NFL's Best Viewership for a Divisional Saturday Afternoon Kickoff in 10 Seasons
Third Consecutive Season ESPN Punctuates Season-Long NFL Campaign with Its Most-Watched NFL Game Ever
ESPN's 2025 NFL Divisional Round presentation delivered a record-breaking audience across ESPN platforms, as the Houston Texans at the Kansas City Chiefs (Saturday, Jan. 18, 4:30 p.m. ET) is the company's most-watched NFL game of all-time. The 32.7 million viewers surpass each NFL on ESPN game, playoffs and regular season, since 1987 (38 seasons), the first year when the network aired NFL games.
ESPN's Texans-Chiefs viewership is expected to surpass 33 million viewers when Nielsen reports the final audience this week. The current viewership of 32.7 million viewers includes the vast majority, but not all audiences from ESPN, ABC and ESPN+.
Additional ESPN's Texans-Chiefs Viewership Highlights:
NFL's Best Divisional Saturday Afternoon Viewership in 10 Seasons: ESPN's Texans-Chiefs viewership is the NFL's top audience for a Divisional Saturday afternoon (4:30 p.m. kickoff) in 10 seasons, beginning in January 2016 to present, across all networks.
ESPN Up Year-Over-Year: ESPN bested its own audience from the 2024 Divisional Round, which was also played on the same day and time slot, and earned a then-record audience of 32.3 million viewers.
ESPN Delivers Saturday's Top Peak Audience Across All Networks: ESPN's audience peaked at 38.5 million viewers (7-7:15 p.m.), the highest peak audience of any network on Saturday, Jan. 18.
Disney's Most-Watched Non-Super Bowl NFL Game: ESPN's Texans-Chiefs' 32.7 million viewers marks Disney's most-watched NFL game, excluding Super Bowls.
The audience bested all 25 Disney NFL Playoff games in the previous 29 years, including 14 exclusively on ABC (1996-2005), ten available on ABC and ESPN (2016-24) and one solely on ESPN (2015).
The game also surpassed every regular season game exclusively on ABC since 1996.
Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, Lisa Salters Era Deliver ESPN's Most-Watched Games
ESPN re-writing its own record books has become a modern trend, as each season of the Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, and Lisa Salters era (2022-23, 23-24, and 24-25 seasons) has concluded with ESPN airing its most-watched game of all-time. In that same period, accounting for all games in regular season and postseason, ESPN has aired seven of its eight most-watched games.
ESPN's Most-Watched NFL Games Ever, Dating Back to 1987
Rank NFL Season Date Game Viewership Monday Night Football or Playoff Game
1 2024-25 January 18, 2025 Houston Texans at Kansas City Chiefs 32,701,000 Divisional Playoff
2 2023-24 January 20, 2024 Houston Texans at Baltimore Ravens 32,306,000 Divisional Playoff
3 2022-23 January 16, 2023 Dallas Cowboys at Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31,201,000 Wild Card Playoff
4 2023-24 January 15, 2024 Philadelphia Eagles at Tampa Bay Buccaneers 29,135,000 Wild Card Playoff
5 2023-24 November 20, 2023 Philadelphia Eagles at Kansas City Chiefs 28,962,000 Monday Night Football
6 2023-24 December 25, 2023 Baltimore Ravens at San Francisco 49ers 27,616,000 Monday Night Football
7 2019-20 January 4, 2020 Buffalo Bills at Houston Texans 26,973,000 Wild Card Playoff
8 2023-24 December 30, 2023 Detroit Lions at Dallas Cowboys 26,061,000 Monday Night Football
All ESPN-produced games. All games aired on, at least, ESPN and ABC, except Christmas Day game which was only on ABC. Viewership above does not include ESPN Deportes for historical purposes
Record Breaking Playoff Viewership Adds to ESPN's Strong 2024-25 Season
ESPN's record-breaking playoff viewership concludes the company's 2024-25 season which delivered Monday Night Football's second most-watched season in the ESPN era, joining the 2023 campaign as the two most- watched MNF seasons (2006 - present). This season, Monday Night Football averaged 15 million viewers a game and reached 112 million fans along the way.
Please note: ESPN's viewership for Postseason NFL Countdown, which led into Texans-Chiefs Divisional game, will be available when final audiences are reported this week. Disney's ownership of ABC/ESPN began February 1996. Disney has aired Super Bowl XXXIV, Super Bowl XXXVI, and Super Bowl XL.
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