CBS broadcaster Jim Nantz called last Thursday\u2019s late-afternoon NFL game a perfect confluence of three of the biggest brands in American culture \u2014 the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs and Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n
And the result of that confluence?<\/p>\n
The most-watched regular season game in NFL history \u2014 and a head-spinning viewership number.<\/p>\n
A whopping 57.2 million viewers watched Dallas\u2019 31-28 Thanksgiving Day victory over Kansas City on CBS and Paramount+, per a source with knowledge of the data. The late-afternoon game\u2019s average viewership shattered the previous regular-season record set three Thanksgivings ago in 2022, when the Cowboys and Giants drew 42 million viewers on Fox. Viewership peaked during the game\u2019s conclusion (7:45-8 p.m. ET), when 61.4 million people were tuned in.<\/p>\n
The record was not accidental. The NFL made a strategic decision this year to pit its two most-watched teams against each other on its most-watched day of regular-season football. Viewership is the engine that drives the NFL, and setting a new regular-season viewership record, especially by this much, is news that will cross over from the \u201cinside baseball\u201d world of sports media and sports business writers into the broader sports-fan ecosystem.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the day, more NFL TV records fell. The Packers\u2019 31-24 win over the Lions in the early Thanksgiving Day game averaged 47.7 million viewers on Fox and Tubi, becoming the most-watched \u201cearly\u201d Thanksgiving game on record and aided by the NFL moving the kickoff back 30 minutes for a 1:00 p.m. ET start. That 47.7 million would have been the all-time NFL regular-season record-setter, if not for the game that followed on rival CBS. The Packers-Lions audience peaked at its conclusion (4-4:15 p.m. ET) with 58 million viewers watching.<\/p>\n
In primetime on NBC, the Ravens-Bengals game also set a record for most-watched Thanksgiving night game ever, with an average of 28.4 million viewers across NBC, Peacock and Telemundo.<\/p>\n
Viewership for the Bears-Eagles Black Friday game on Prime Video is expected to be available Thursday.<\/p>\n
The Thanksgiving Day viewership numbers obviously got a heavy boost from Nielsen\u2019s Big Data + Panel Technology<\/a>, which offers better data for out-of-home viewership, a massive factor particularly on Thanksgiving. Still, the quality of the game always matters, as does momentum. The Cowboys entered the game following a massive comeback win<\/a> in thrilling fashion over the Eagles. The Chiefs\u2019 23-20 overtime victory over the Colts before Thanksgiving essentially saved their season<\/a>. Then came a very watchable Thanksgiving Day game that was still close in the final quarter.<\/p>\n Both the Chiefs and Cowboys have big challenges ahead to make the postseason. As of today, The Athletic\u2019s NFL Playoff Simulator had the Chiefs with a 37 percent chance to make the playoffs, while the Cowboys were at 23 percent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CBS broadcaster Jim Nantz called last Thursday\u2019s late-afternoon NFL game a perfect confluence of three of the biggest…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":422256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[392,8998,3570,1232,62,222,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-422255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-culture","9":"tag-dallas-cowboys","10":"tag-kansas-city-chiefs","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-sports-business","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115656830795794004","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}