Football games send viewers to TV on cold weekend

By DAVID BAUDER
AP Media Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Viewers parked themselves in front of their televisions to watch football and stay out of the January chill. The NFL says an average of 30.5 million people watched their wild card games over the weekend either on television or digitally. That was up 21 percent over the same games in 2021. The Nielsen company said 22.3 million people watched Georgia defeat Alabama for the NCAA football championship. That was good news for ESPN, after two lackluster semifinal games on New Year’s Eve were not big television winners. Between football, “60 Minutes” and its “FBI” franchise, CBS was the week’s television winner.