NFL Viewership Dominated Thanksgiving As Much As Turkey And Dressing Did
All three holiday games on FOX, CBS and NBC set new viewership benchmarks
Decades ago, the NFL's growing popularity took Sundays away from the church. Now, it's threatening to take Thanksgiving Day away from the turkey.
The league and its partner networks announced Wednesday that viewership for its Thanksgiving Day lineup of games on FOX, CBS, and NBC shattered previous records.
All as expected when playoff races tightening include the Dallas Cowboys and Kansas City Chiefs.
Chiefs At Cowboys Sets Record
A record-setting number of 57.2 million viewers watched the Cowboys beat the Chiefs on Thanksgiving Day. The day was a boon for the surging Cowboys and something of a bummer for the Chiefs, whose coach Andy Reid got all philosophical about the meaning of love and unity or something afterward.
The game is a new ratings bright star for the NFL because it shattered the previous regular-season record set in 2022, when the Cowboys and Giants drew 42.1 million viewers on Thanksgiving.
Yeah, Thanksgiving is no turkey for the NFL.
This new record, by the way, happened when the NFL's best-laid plans all fell into order. League schedule-makers decided back in the spring that matching the defending AFC champion Chiefs against the always dramatic Cowboys in a game of the NFL's two most watched teams would do big numbers on what has traditionally become the league's most-watched day of the regular season.
FOX Holds Record For A Few Minutes
The Chiefs and Cowboys were not the only viewership record-setters.
The fact is that before that late afternoon game began, the Lions and Packers, playing the early afternoon game on FOX and Tubi, drew a whopping 47.7 million viewers on average.
Those numbers made that game the most watched regular-season game of all time for the NFL until the next game broke that record.
The Lions and Packers nonetheless remain the most-watched "early" Thanksgiving game on record.
And that game is also Fox's most-watched NFL regular-season game ever.
The league played a game on Thanksgiving night as well and, you guessed it, another viewership record.
That game on NBC, Peacock and Telemundo drew 28.4 million viewers – many of whom were probably considering a second-helping of bird.
That big number makes this year's game between the Cincinnati Bengals and Baltimore Ravens the most watched Thanksgiving night game ever.
All this flies counter to the narrative that the NFL is flagging. That interest is down. Or that politics, officiating or other factors have somehow ruined the sport.
The record numbers speak for themselves.