ESPN’s Adam Schefter<\/a> reported on Thursday that the Patriots<\/a>‘ matchup against the Texans garnered the most viewership in the history of ESPN.<\/p>\n “ESPN\u2019s telecast of Sunday\u2019s Texans\u2013Patriots matchup became the most-watched event in ESPN history, dating back to the network\u2019s launch in 1979, with 38 million viewers. The game also ranks as Disney\u2019s most-watched sporting event outside of the Super Bowl across nearly three decades of live sports coverage,” Schefter said.<\/p>\n The stakes of the Patriots’ contest against the Texans did not outweigh the forgettable moments of the affair. Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud threw four costly interceptions on the night. Patriots quarterback Drake Maye — a finalist for the 2025 AP NFL MVP award — did not look the part with four fumbles, two of which were lost.<\/p>\n The matchup did, however, produce a highlight-worthy one-handed catch from Patriots wide receiver Kayshon Boutte that cemented the victory for New England early in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n No matter, ESPN revealed that the game surpassed the 2006 Rose Bowl as the most-watched sporting event in the history of Disney — the network’s parent company — with the telecast also topping out at 44.9 million viewers in the second half of regulation.<\/p>\n Follow Patriots Wire on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan. 23, 2026, 9:29 a.m. ET The New England Patriots made history in their 28-16 divisional round win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[95878,7,221,253,2368,6,96851,96852,95882,96676,96127,95892,95893,97164,95896,96854,95888,95895,95899,95906,95883,95894,222,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-699225","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-texans","12":"tag-houstontexans","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-sstssportsnflpatriots","15":"tag-sstsnpatriots","16":"tag-tagamerican-football","17":"tag-tagc-j-stroud","18":"tag-tagdrake-maye","19":"tag-tagespn-inc","20":"tag-tagfacebook","21":"tag-tagkayshon-boutte","22":"tag-tagnational-sports","23":"tag-tagnew-england-patriots","24":"tag-tagnfl","25":"tag-tagnfl-hub","26":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","27":"tag-tagoverall-positive","28":"tag-tagsports-news","29":"tag-tagtwitter","30":"tag-texans","31":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699225","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=699225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769183591_940_86371878007-cardis-1.jpg\")