It would have been a disaster had someone tried to compete against the NFL’s AFC and NFC Championship games given this year’s massive numbers and the almost non-existent numbers for sports going against the football.
Showbuzzdaily has all the Nielsen numbers, starting with those eye-popping NFL numbers: 23.35/50.2 million for the NFC title game on Fox featuring the Rams victory over the 49ers, and a 23.62/47.8 million average for CBS’s broadcast of the Bengal’s win over the Chiefs.
The 2022 Farmers final round wrapping on Saturday drew a 1.71 Nielsen rating with a 2.67 million viewer average.
Friday’s third round on CBS drew a .95/1.4 million average viewership.
Without NFL games to compete against in 2021, the Farmers drew a 1.95/3.1 million average and a 1.27/2.02 million average viewers.
While there are still issues to be resolved for the tournament and lost revenue due to the finish, the Saturday finish on CBS looks like the right move. Assuming the Farmers remains in this date going forward.
As for the LPGA’s Gainbridge played on Sunday against the NFL, Lydia Ko’s win did draw an audience but it was miniscule (.16/236,000).