Over 45 Million People Watched The 49ers Eliminate The Cowboys From The NFL Playoffs

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Football is king. Not that we need any more proof of that absolute fact, but we got some anyway. The Divisional Round matchup between the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys drew an AVERAGE of 45.7 millions on Fox.

Because that's the average number of viewers, we can reasonably ascertain that at some points during the contest, over 50 million Americans tuned in to the game.

By and large, the Divisional Round produced less-than-stellar football. The Kansas City Chiefs and Jacksonville Jaguars played a relatively competitive game. The game also created a subplot because of Patrick Mahomes' ankle injury.

But the Philadelphia Eagles blew the doors off the New York Giants on Saturday night. Then, the Cincinnati Bengals dominated the Buffalo Bills on Sunday afternoon.

Despite the poor quality, the NFL had a strong weekend. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Chiefs-Jaguars averaged 34.3 million and Bills-Bengals drew 39.3 million eyeballs.

The aforementioned snoozefest between the Eagles and Giants still managed to bring in 28.6 million.

Cowboys-49ers always delivers for NFL

But none of those held a candle to the attention garned by "America's Team" getting bounced from the playoffs, again, by the San Francisco 49ers.

49ers-Cowboys drew a massive TV audience for the NFL.

49ers-Cowboys drew a massive TV audience for the NFL. (Photo by Michael Owens/Getty Images)

Last season, the Niners knocked the Cowboys out in the Wild Card Round. That game drew 41.5 million viewers. This year's matchup drew the biggest Divisional Round audience since Packers-Cowboys in 2017, according to Sports Media Watch.

The bigger the stakes, the bigger audience and the teams delivered for the league yet again.

This weekend, we have two of the best quarterbacks in the NFL facing one another -- assuming Patrick Mahomes does in fact play on his high-ankle sprain -- and two of the league's more popular franchises -- the Eagles and 49ers -- squaring off.

It will be interesting to see how many people tune in, but an average of 50 million people across both seems quite reasonable. Unless, of course, the games are bad. But both feature matchups where the point spread is less than three points, hinting that they should be competitive.

If that's the case, we could see numbers not seen in the new age of streaking and cord-cutting.

NFL is king.

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Dan began his sports media career at ESPN, where he survived for nearly a decade. Once the Stockholm Syndrome cleared, he made his way to Outkick. He is secure enough in his masculinity to admit he is a cat-enthusiast with three cats, one of which is named “Brady” because his wife wishes she were married to Tom instead of him.