The New England Patriots have been a TV ratings juggernaut this season in their pursuit of a perfect season. But it was the big market New York Giants and the Brett Favre-led Green Bay Packers that scored the highest TV rating for ANY televised program since last year's Super Bowl between the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears drew a Super Bowl record 93 million viewers.

Yesterday's NFC Championship game on FOX earned a 31.7/46 overnight rating according to Nielsen. That's up almost 13% from the 28.1 rating for last year's Pats-Colts AFC Championship game in the same time slot. The Giants-Packers  game yesterday was the highest rated championship game since the 1996 NFC Championship between the Packers and Cowboys.

CBS didn't fare too badly with their telecast of the Pats-Chargers yesterday. That game earned a 27.4/48 rating up nearly 5% from the 26.2 rating for the Bears-Saints NFC Championship game in the same time slot last year.

The Super Bowl on FOX seems primed to break last year's record TV audience. With the Patriots and Tom Brady trying for a perfect season and the big market New York Giants led by up and comer Eli Manning, we could see an audience that pushes the 100 million mark.

We'll discuss this in more depth on this weekend's edition of Sports Business Radio.