NFL boasts ratings power surge: What's next, both title games in prime time?

The NFL once again proved it's the television ratings king.

Sunday night's NFC Championship pitting the Minnesota Vikings at the New Orleans Saints drew a massive 57.9 million viewers. It was the NFL's highest-viewed non-Super Bowl since the 1981 NFC Championship, which featured the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers. (Yes, "The Catch.") It also was the most viewed non-Super Bowl event on television since the "Seinfeld" finale in 1998.

The AFC title game featuring the New York Jets at Indianapolis drew 46.9 viewers, the most viewers for an AFC title game since 1986 (New England at Miami). Championship Sunday brought an average of 52.9 million viewers for both games, up by 34 percent from last year.

Three participants' market size makes these ratings even more impressive. New Orleans and Indianapolis rank 25th and 53rd, respectively, in television market size. Minneapolis-St. Paul ranks 15th. New Orleans and Indianapolis don't have Major League Baseball, and Minnesota is considered small market for that sport based on its revenue.

There's really no comparison between the NFL and other sports when it comes to viewership. The 2010 BCS Championship Game between Alabama and Texas boasted 30.7 million viewers, the best numbers among all non-NFL sporting events. Game 4 of the 2009 World Series (Yankees-Phillies) drew 22.8 million viewers. The NCAA basketball championship featuring Michigan State and North Carolina posted 17.6 million viewers. Other events like the Kentucky Derby (16.1 million), Daytona 500 (16 million), NBA Finals Game 4 (16 million for Celtics-Lakers) and the Masters' final round (14.3 million) pale compared to the 29.8 million viewers who watched a regular-season Sunday afternoon game between Green Bay and Minnesota.

For those interested, the 2010 Orange Bowl (Iowa-Georgia Tech) posted a high of 10.7 million viewers, a 17 percent increase over the 2009 Orange Bowl (Cincinnati-Virginia Tech).

The continuous surge in NFL ratings is in part because the product is ultra-popular and its storylines are compelling. Airing the season's conclusion during the winter is a plus, but even the league's annual non-event (the NFL draft) averaged nearly 3.9 million viewers on ESPN over its 15 1/2 hours. More than 36 million viewers watched some portion of the draft last year.

So how will the NFL straddle the line between giving the public additional coverage without oversaturation? Before the season the the league launched "NFL RedZone " a channel which shifted from game to game to provide up-to-the second live coverage inside the 20-yard line. This year ESPN and the NFL Network will air the NFL draft's first three rounds in prime time (first round on Thursday night, rounds two and three on Friday night). To generate even more exposure (and revenue), the NFL could shift its annual late-season, eight-game slate from the NFL Network to, say, NBC (which could use it after the whole Conan-Leno fiasco). It could place both conference championship games into prime time (one on Saturday, one on Sunday) or give each team a second bye to extend the season by one week. It also might convert one or two preseason games into regular-season games. It could allow its Web site or another to carry live games either for free or for a price.

But if history is any lesson, the NFL should remember its past. The highest-rated Super Bowl to date (49.1 rating, fourth-highest rating all-time) was Super Bowl XVI between San Francisco and Cincinnati. It was held two weeks after "The Catch." That next fall, a players' strike wiped out half the season. The NFL and the NFL Players Association appear on course for a major impasse in negotiations when their contract expires in 2011.