Nielsen Weekly Sports Ranking

BEFORE …: CBS’ AFC Championship Game pregame show on Jan. 18, attracted 9.53 million households, a 37.2 percent jump over last year’s AFC show. The pregame show for the NFC title game, which aired on Fox, drew 11.67 million households, up 27.1 percent from last year.

… AND AFTER: When the AFC championship game ended, 12.99 million households tuned in for CBS’ postgame coverage, down 7.4 percent from last year. Over on Fox, 12.82 million households tuned in for the NFC championship postgame broadcast, up 57.5 percent from last year.

SUPER BOWL-ERS: More households watched the PBA’s Medford Open on ESPN on Jan. 18 than watched ESPN’s Jan. 16 NBA telecast featuring Sacramento and the L.A. Lakers. ESPN aired bowling coverage on Sundays throughout the NFL season. Helping the audience for the Medford Open was the fact that the PBA, on this Sunday, did not have to compete with NFL games at 1 p.m. ET. The day’s NFL doubleheader did not start until 3 p.m. ET, 30 minutes after the PBA broadcast concluded.

See this chart for the complete ranking.