ESPN is reporting that its NFL playoffs and College Football Playoff games in January boosted audiences to levels not seen at the network in years.
ESPN averaged 1.6 million viewers throughout the entire month of January, the cable network’s best average minute audience for any month dating back to January 2015 (120 months). Compared to January 2024, the average-minute audience represents a 38% increase.
Combining all of ESPN’s cable programming with ESPN-branded sports programming on ABC, more minutes were watched by fans than any month since January 2017 (96 months). In total, 81.4 billion minutes of sports content were watched on ESPN and ABC.
ESPN, across all its Nielsen-rated networks, also accounted for 42% of all sports viewership for the month, with its nearest competitor coming in at 20%. ESPN, the single network, accounted for 29% of sports viewership on its own, besting its nearest competitor by 9%.
During the month, ESPN also reported that its 2025 AFC divisional playoff game delivered a record-breaking audience across its platforms, as Houston Texans-Kansas City Chiefs (Saturday, Jan. 18, 4:30 p.m. ET) became its most-watched NFL game of all-time. The 33.8 million viewers surpassed each NFL on ESPN game, playoffs and regular season, since 1987 (38 seasons), the network’s first year airing NFL games. Texans-Chiefs aired on ESPN, ABC, ESPN+, ESPN Deportes, and NFL+.
Nielsen defined the January viewing period as Dec. 30, 2024, to Jan. 26, ESPN said. All historical comparisons used Nielsen’s defined January month.
