Bears-Packers Wild Card game breaks NFL streaming record

This year’s Wild Card games ensured that the NFL Playoffs got off to a thrilling start.

There were upsets and heartbreaks right across the weekend but no game offered as much drama as the Chicago Bears’ stunning comeback win against the Green Bay Packers. The game was streamed exclusively on Amazon Prime to a record-breaking audience.

The Athletic has revealed that the Bears-Packers game drew an average of 31.61 million viewers. That ranks as the NFL’s biggest-ever audience for a streaming-only game, beating Netflix’s Christmas Day telecast of the Detroit Lions-Minnesota Vikings clash last month (27.52 million).

Wild Card weekend draws huge audiences

It wasn’t only the Bears’ dramatic victory that brought in viewers. Across the weekend there were big audiences to watch the first games of the NFL Playoffs.

FOX Sports had the broadcast rights for Sunday night’s game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Philadelphia Eagles. The 49ers shocked the reigning Super Bowl champions with a 23-19 win, drawing an average audience of 41 million. That was the most-watched Wild Card game since 2022.

Elsewhere the 28 million fans who watched the Los Angeles Rams take on the Carolina Panthers was the biggest audience for a Saturday afternoon Wild Card game since 2011.

Finally, the Sunday afternoon game between the Buffalo Bills and the Jacksonville Jaguars drew an average viewership of 32 million, the most-watched AFC Wild Card game played in the early Sunday slot.

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