{"id":697465,"date":"2026-01-22T23:16:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T23:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/697465\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T23:16:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T23:16:12","slug":"bears-vs-rams-set-an-nfl-playoff-viewership-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/697465\/","title":{"rendered":"Bears vs Rams Set An NFL Playoff Viewership Record"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">As a Chicago Bears fan, do you ever find yourself thinking, Man, life\u2019s just so much better when the Bears are good?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Well, that\u2019s how the National Football League feels, too.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Bears are a ratings juggernaut even when they are in the midst of a down year, so it\u2019s no surprise that with Chicago in the postseason for the first time since 2020, with a winning season for the first time since 2018, and with a playoff win for the first time since the 2010 season, the Chicago Bears set a viewership record.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">To be fair, the Los Angeles Rams were involved in the record, but let\u2019s be honest, do you know any Rams fans in real life?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">From the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsports.com\/press-releases\/nbc-sports-delivers-its-most-watched-nfl-divisional-playoff-game-on-record-as-rams-bears-thriller-averages-45-4-million-viewers-on-nbc-peacock\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBC press release<\/a>: Sunday\u2019s Los Angeles Rams-Chicago Bears thriller at a frigid Soldier Field delivered NBC Sports\u2019 most-watched NFL Divisional Playoff audience on record, with an average of 45.4 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, NBC Sports Digital platforms and NFL Digital platforms, based on official Nielsen Big Data + Panel and digital data from Adobe Analytics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Chicago market did its part with a big-time 34.7\/66 local rating (#1 overall), while the Los Angeles market averaged a 16.3\/55 (not even the top 10).<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Jeff Agrest, the Chicago Sun-Times deputy sports editor\/media columnist, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/JeffAgrest\/status\/2014073903010750932\" rel=\"nofollow\">shared<\/a> that the local rating equates to about 1.27 million households watching on NBC in the Chicago market, which is damn near everyone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Per NBC, viewership went up every hour of the game and peaked at 52.6 million for the game\u2019s final minutes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Get ready for even more prime time and standalone games for Caleb Williams and company in 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Here are the top 10 metered markets for the Rams at the Bears game.<br \/>(Based on 56 metered markets)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a Chicago Bears fan, do you ever find yourself thinking, Man, life\u2019s just so much better when&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[88341,741,7,6,84],"class_list":["post-697465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl-playoffs","tag-chicago-bears-playoffs","tag-chicago-bears-news","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-playoffs"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115941303013039194","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}