The Houston Texans still haven’t reached their first conference championship game, but they did help ESPN to an unprecedented viewership metric.
The network has been around for more than 46 years, covering sports 24/7 since Sept. 7, 1979. That’s included broadcasting all of North America’s major professional leagues, significant college football and basketball telecasts − including March Madness for men and women for a period − … ‘Stump the Schwab,’ Australian Rules Football, ‘Playmakers’ and so much more (wink).
So given that backdrop, both in length and breadth of sports coverage, it’s pretty wild to learn that Sunday’s NFL divisional round playoff game between the Texans and New England Patriots became the most-watched event on ESPN − ever.
The network announced its new record Thursday, Jan. 22, revealing that 38 million viewers tuned in for New England’s decisive 28-16 defeat of the Texans, a team − one that’s 23 years younger than ESPN − that’s hardly ever resonated as a national brand. The game also ranked as Disney’s most-watched sporting event, Super Bowl broadcasts on ABC notwithstanding.
Patriots-Texans represented a 12% rise from last year’s divisional round game between Houston and the Kansas City Chiefs and was up 17% from the Baltimore Ravens-Texans game in the 2023 divisional round (calendar year 2024).
ESPN began carrying NFL games in 1987.
Disney’s previous record for a sporting event was the 2006 Rose Bowl, an instant classic in which Vince Young’s Texas Longhorns upset USC for the national championship. Patriots-Texans was also Disney’s most-watched telecast of any kind since 2014.