Bear Digest

One Extreme Down Side to Strong Bears Viewership in Playoff Loss

The tremendously large TV audience for Sunday night's Chicago Bears playoff loss can lead to one thing they probably don't really want but can't avoid in 2026.
Gene Chamberlain|
The Rams celebrate as Bears cornerback Jaylon Jones (33) looks on at the end of Sunday night's L.A. playoff victory.
The Rams celebrate as Bears cornerback Jaylon Jones (33) looks on at the end of Sunday night's L.A. playoff victory. | David Banks-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

NBC Sports' revelation about the Bears and Rams setting a divisional playoff viewership record for their game Sunday night means a little more than the fact Chicago tunes in to support its team.

The telecast of Ben Johnson's team trying to get to the NFC Championship Game reached a record average of 45.4 million and peaked at over 52 million.

The Bears were obviously the big draw as the breakdown revealed. Chicago had a 34.7/66 local rating share while in Los Angeles it was only 16.3/55. The Bears-Rams audience was helped greatly by NFC North area markets.  Milwaukee was the second largest market share, Minneapolis fourth and Detroit sixth.

This popularity for this Bears game followed an NFL season that had the most viewership since 1989. It went hand in hand with the record for a streamed game set by the Bears and Packers on Prime in their playoff battle and the record Black Friday viewership the Bears and Eagles had.

So with all of those big numbers and interest, and with Caleb Williams perceived as an exciting, young quarterback to watch, it's sure to mean one thing when the NFL comes out with its schedule in May after the draft.

The Bears can count on being slated for a ton of prime-time telecasts, whether on streamed games or networks. They'll be lucky to get half day games.

They actually had only a moderate number of night games this year with four night games in the regular season, and a pair of night playoff games—including a 5:30 p.m. start against the Rams.

What's wrong with night games?

All of this might sound fine but there's one cold, hard fact about the Bears and night time games. They just haven't been prime-time players.

The Bears own a 35-44 record all time on Monday Night Football. They are 18-32 on Sunday Night Football. On Thursday Night Football, they are a little better but still have a losing mark of 7-8.

Their record on Sunday night with the NBC telecast crew is not just abysmal, it's incredibly poor. They have lost 12 straight games with the NBC crew calling their games, starting with the "double-doink" game after the 2018 eason and running through Sunday night's playoff loss.

Night-time kickoffs are usually the price of being a winning team and Bears history says it's a high price, especially when they're waiting all day for Sunday night.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.