FanSection Blog

Today was Separation Sunday in the NFL with several playoff spots in the AFC and NFC up for grabs.  In the end, most of the key playoff-like games came up as duds with the Cowboys, Bears, and Broncos laying major eggs on the road in games they were really never in.  The result is a playoff slate that very few of the talking heads at ESPN picked before the season began.

From the AFC, the teams listed below are in the playoffs.  I have also included the number of FanSection subscribers to demonstrate the relative popularity of the team within the FanSection community.

• Pittsburgh Steelers - 301K
• Indianapolis Colts - 221K
• Miami Dolphins - 62K
• Tennessee Titans - 58K
• Baltimore Ravens - 72K
• San Diego Chargers - 90K

And here is how the playoff picture looks for the NFC:

• New York Giants - 195K
• Carolina Panthers - 60K
• Philadelphia Eagles - 182K
• Atlanta Falcons - 18K
• Arizona Cardinals - 6K
• Minnesota Vikings - 94K

The most interesting thing from this list of playoff teams, other than the meteoric rise of the Dolphins and Falcons this season, are the big-name teams that will be sitting at home this January.   Of the top five teams from a FanSection subscriber perspective, four will not be taking part in the playoffs this year.  They are:

• New England Patriots - 393K
• Dallas Cowboys - 330K
• Chicago Bears - 296K
• Green Bay Packers - 275K

The potential impact on TV ratings of these teams missing the playoffs could be significant according to TV By The Numbers.  Those four teams, along with the New York Jets, traditionally deliver big television audiences either because of their popularity of the market in which they reside.  The Cowboys have been especially big this year as evidenced by the TV ratings for their national primetime games.  NBC has to be a little nervous with all of the possibilities of s sub-par Super Bowl matchup: Carolina-Tennessee, Minnesota-San Diego, or the biggest nightmare of all, Arizona-Baltimore.   Of course, there is still some ratings hope with the possibility of getting something sexier like the Manning Bowl between the Giants and Colts.

From the point of view of the FanSection community, we would have loved to have included the over 1.2 million subscribers that make up the four non-playoff teams mentioned earlier.  We’re going to be kicking off some playoff-focused fan contests this week to rally the troops around their team, so we’ll have to rely on some of the smaller communities to pick up the pace.  It will be interesting to see if the surprising appearance of the Cardinals, Falcons, and Dolphins this year have a positive impact on those communities.  For the MLB playoffs, we saw a huge boost in subscribers for the Tampa Bay and Philadelphia applications with an increase of 143% and 174% respectively.  I’ll report on that when we have some additional information.