The Dallas Cowboys’ thrilling 31-28 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs on Thanksgiving Day has made history, averaging an astonishing 57.23 million viewers on CBS. Cowboys leave their mark on this matchup as they win seven straight. It broke the record for most-watched regular-season game in NFL history! Its viewership peaked at an astounding 61.36 million during the last dramatic conclusion, earning itself a secure place in the annals of sports broadcasting history.
That Cowboys/Chiefs game certainly helped spearhead the eye-popping viewership. At the same time, the early game between the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions produced an equally robust audience. That same matchup averaged a whopping 47.7 million viewers, the second most-watched game in league history. The average audience for this game topped 57.96 million viewers, illustrating the power of Thanksgiving football.
The viewership numbers are phenomenal. They’re perhaps even more impressive once you factor in that the former record for a regular season game was 42.06 million, set during the 2022 New York Giants-Cowboys game. That record was beaten handily, exceeding last year’s Cowboys-Chiefs game by an astounding 36%. In addition, it was a 47% increase from last Thanksgiving’s late-afternoon moveable feast, the Giants and Cowboys.
This year, the NFL’s cumulative viewership has surged. To take one state as an example, they’ve gone up 6% in the first 12 weeks alone! The league’s continued success is underscored by the fact that ‘Sunday Night Football’ is experiencing its highest ratings in its 20-year history, with a 10% increase compared to the previous year.
In addition to the Thanksgiving Day excitement, Joe Burrow’s return to the Cincinnati Bengals lineup averaged 28.4 million viewers on NBC. This represents a significant high for interest in NFL games, particularly in 4pm/early evening time slots and/or non-divisional matchups.
“Football’s had a phenomenal season, so it’s not just a one-day exercise where we see these record ratings. We are in our 20th season of ‘Sunday Night Football’ and this is the highest season we’ve ever had. We’re up 10% on last year, and so the NFL has never been stronger,” – Rick Cordella
The Cowboys-Chiefs game will be a prime example of the NFL’s tactical focus to win more eyeballs. As Hans Schroeder noted regarding Nielsen’s out-of-home rollout, “I think some of the work that Nielsen’s did with their initial out-of-home rollout, we saw a big step forward and this next step of capturing the entire country was the next step in that evolution that we think gets to the most accurate view of what our audiences are.”
The NFL has undeniably prospered from prioritizing viewer engagement above all else. David Berson remarked, “It’s typically the most-viewed time slot every year and we decided to go big. Credit to Hans here for pushing.”
Mike Mulvihill emphasized the importance of continued strategic planning for future seasons: “I think it was entirely strategically correct to really go for it this year and try to get the biggest number. I think next year we’re going to have to think about how aggressive we want to be, because at some level it is a little bit zero sum.”
The successful Thanksgiving Day games illustrate not only the NFL’s ability to capture viewers but its potential for future growth. Roger Goodell acknowledged this phenomenon, stating, “It’s probably a bigger number than we projected, but again, I think we’re now measuring an audience that wasn’t measured before, which is obviously helpful.”
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