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Afternoon Edition

January 22, 2026

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A massive winter storm expected to sweep across the country into the Northeast is prompting widespread sports cancellations, potentially driving even more viewers to an already red-hot NFL postseason.

— Eric Fisher [[link removed]]

Winter Storm Is Disrupting Sports, but NFL Could See a TV Boost [[link removed]]

Scott Galvin-Imagn Images

A massive winter storm hitting much of the U.S. this weekend is already causing large-scale impacts across the sports world.

A still-growing collection of teams, conferences, and leagues has canceled or postponed events in the wake of the forthcoming Winter Storm Fern. The weather system, spanning more than 2,000 miles in a path from New Mexico to New England, is expected to affect more than 200 million people. While much of the South could experience crippling levels of ice, some other areas are predicted to receive more than two feet of snow. Several states have preemptively declared a state of emergency.

Among the sports-related moves from the storm so far:

MLB’s Rangers canceled their Fan Fest, scheduled for Saturday at Globe Life Field, as well as Winter Warm-up Week stops on Friday and Sunday. The American Athletic Conference changed its schedules for a series of men’s and women’s basketball games, with several weekend contests in particular moved to Friday, before the full impact of the storm. The Sun Belt Conference changed the schedule for a set of its women’s basketball games, beginning with a scheduled Marshall-Southern Miss matchup Thursday. Hundreds of individual colleges and high schools similarly shifted men’s and women’s basketball games scheduled for this weekend, as well as for smaller Olympic sports. Viewership Impact

While weather-related disruptions are still amassing across sports, Sunday’s conference championship games in the NFL are comparatively safe. Neither Denver, the site of the AFC title game between the Broncos and Patriots, nor Seattle, the locale for the NFC championship between the Rams and Seahawks, is in the pathway for Winter Storm Fern.

It’s quite possible, though, that more fans being snowed or iced in will help boost viewership on CBS and Fox, respectively, for those title games. That’s, of course, provided that the increased tune-in isn’t countered by large-scale power outages from the storm that would obviously cut into television usage.

The NFL has history around this, though, as prior storms and cold snaps have previously helped spike television audiences [[link removed]]. In 2010, the Super Bowl surpassed the 100 million mark in average viewership for the first time, reaching 106.5 million for Super Bowl XLIV between the Colts and Saints. That audience set a U.S. television record—all right after a major blizzard, termed at the time as “Snowmageddon,” hit the densely populated Northeast U.S.

Aside from the weather, the NFL this season is in the midst of a banner season for viewership with a series of milestones achieved during the regular season [[link removed]], in the wild-card round [[link removed]], the divisional round [[link removed]], and on streaming [[link removed]].

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NFL Playoff Ratings Surge As NBC, ESPN Set Network Records [[link removed]]

Matt Marton-Imagn Images

Another overtime thriller in the NFL’s divisional playoffs led to another historic viewership figure.

After CBS drew the best Saturday audience on U.S. television in 32 years [[link removed]] for the Bills-Broncos clash, NBC said Thursday that it averaged 45.4 million viewers for the Rams’ nailbiter win over the Bears Sunday night.

The game, won 20–17 by Los Angeles, surpassed last year’s comparable game [[link removed]] by 8% and was the most-watched NFL divisional playoff broadcast in NBC’s history—beating a 1994 matchup between the Chiefs and Oilers that had stood for 32 years. That prior broadcast, which averaged 41.1 million viewers, featured future Pro Football Hall of Famers Joe Montana and Warren Moon.

The Los Angeles-Chicago matchup Sunday peaked with an average audience of 52.6 million during the overtime period. An average of 5.3 million viewers watched the digital simulcast of the game on Peacock and related online properties, marking the largest NFL audience for NBC Sports Digital outside of Super Bowls.

The drama from the Rams-Bears clash also represents a strong setup for the NFL as it now prepares to air Super Bowl LX on Feb. 8 [[link removed]]. That broadcast is expected to challenge last year’s Super Bowl on Fox [[link removed]] as the most-watched single-network event ever on U.S. television.

ESPN Makes Major History

The coverage earlier Sunday of the Texans-Patriots divisional playoff game, meanwhile, averaged 38 million viewers on ESPN and ABC. That figure just edged out the 37.8 million viewership average for a comparable Rams-Eagles game last year on NBC in that afternoon slot.

Much more important to ESPN and parent company Disney, though, is that the Houston-New England game represented the single-most-watched event in network history.

Going back to ESPN’s formation in 1979 and the tens of thousands of live events shown since then across its many platforms, no game has generated a bigger audience than the Patriots’ 28–16 win over the Texans.

It’s also the most-watched sports event across all of Disney, when also considering ABC, with the exception of Super Bowls on that broadcast network, and Disney’s most-watched telecast of any type since 2014.

The audience for the Texans–Patriots game peaked at an average of 44.9 million viewers late in the second half, near the start of the subsequent Rams–Bears broadcast.

Collectively, the four divisional playoff games averaged 39.2 million viewers, a 5% boost from last year and the second most-watched figure on record for this round of the NFL postseason.

Like the earlier parts of the 2025 NFL season, the divisional round was the first to benefit from the arrival of new and expanded Nielsen methodologies to track audiences, notably Big Data + Panel [[link removed]].

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STATUS REPORT Two Up, Two Down

USA TODAY-Imagn Images

Sean McDermott ⬆ Less than a week after his firing [[link removed]], Bills fans want their former head coach of nine years back. Fans have started a petition to re-hire McDermott [[link removed]], with more than 26,000 signing on in support as of Thursday afternoon. McDermott finished his tenure in Buffalo with a record of 98–50 and eight playoff appearances, but was unable to reach a Super Bowl with star quarterback Josh Allen.

Christian McCaffrey ⬆ The finalists for NFL awards were released Thursday, with the 49ers running back being announced as a finalist for MVP, Offensive Player of the Year, and Comeback Player of the Year. McCaffrey, the second-highest-paid running back in the NFL, joins Adrian Peterson and Joe Burrow as the only players to be nominated for all three awards in the same season.

Nets ⬇ Brooklyn suffered its worst defeat of the season to its inter-city rival, losing 120–66 to the Knicks. The 54-point differential was the second-worst loss in the NBA this season and was the largest margin of victory for the Knicks in franchise history.

Capitals ⬇ Washington’s season reached a new low, as the team lost 4–3 to the Canucks, who entered Wednesday on an 11-game losing streak. The Capitals led the Eastern Conference with 111 points in the 2024–25 season, but have struggled this year, now sitting in 12th place in the conference after their fourth straight loss.

Editors’ Picks NFLPA Fired Lawyer Who Accused It of Retaliation [[link removed]]by Daniel Kaplan [[link removed]]The firing was disclosed in a previously unreported court filing. What Do LIV Golf’s Team GMs Do? ‘Wear a Lot of Hats’ [[link removed]]by David Rumsey [[link removed]]The GM of Dustin Johnson’s LIV team functions like a one-man C-suite. Nathan’s Hot Dog Contest Will Continue Under New Chinese Ownership [[link removed]]by Ben Horney [[link removed]]Nathan’s expects to keep the contest at Coney Island. DAILY TRIVIA Factle Sports

Can you list the top five NFL quarterbacks with the most passing yards in the 2025–26 regular season?

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