Take the NFL’s two biggest TV draws. Add in the league’s red-hot viewership this season. Throw in a tush push from Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel, which is boosting ratings across sports. Put it all together and CBS’s telecast of Chiefs vs. Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day could be the first regular-season game in history to average 50 million viewers or more.
That’s the prediction from several industry experts about Thursday’s marquee matchup between Kansas City and Dallas at AT&T Stadium. Average viewership of 50 million or more would blow away the record 42.1 million viewers for Cowboys-Giants on Thanksgiving Day 2022. Before that, the longstanding record was 41.5 million for the 1990 Monday Night Football matchup between the Giants and 49ers. Fox’s February telecast of Super Bowl LIX is the most-watched TV show of all time at 127.7 million viewers.
“Chiefs-Cowboys is the perfect storm,” says one rival sports TV executive envious of CBS. “You’ve got Patrick Mahomes vs. Dak Prescott. You’ve got the old America’s Team vs. the new America’s Team. All of it at Jerry’s World.”
Gary Myers, author of “Once a Giant: A Story of Victory, Tragedy, and Life After Football,” predicts 50.1 million viewers.
“Could the NFL have planned the Thanksgiving late-afternoon window any better as it tries to scale the Mount Everest of regular-season TV ratings—a seemingly unattainable 50 million viewers?” asks Myers. “The Cowboys are the No. 1 ratings magnet in the country. The Chiefs, perhaps the second-biggest draw in the league, are trying to extend their dynasty with Patrick Mahomes. The matchup was already going to be an embarrassment of riches for CBS, but with the Chiefs and Cowboys on desperate playoff runs, this could force holiday dinners to pregame or postgame.”
Sunday’s dramatic Week 12 helped set the stage for a pigskin bonanza on Thursday. Tens of millions of viewers watched the Chiefs and Cowboys stage desperate comebacks to keep their playoff hopes alive.
Stephen Battaglio, TV and media writer for the Los Angeles Times, is predicting a monster 55 million viewers.
“Sunday’s results clearly make this match-up a much bigger deal than it looked like on paper. The Cowboys are energized and the Chiefs are still living on the edge to remain in playoff contention,” Battaglio says. “Combine that element with overall strength of NFL ratings this season, and a record Super Bowl, I can see 55 million viewers.”
We won’t know for sure until the league and networks release Thanksgiving numbers next week. But heading into Thursday, sports TV experts say you can throw out the Chiefs and Cowboys respective 6–5 and 5-5-1 records. They’re still the NFL’s biggest TV attractions.
Kansas City has played in four of the five most-watched game telecasts this season, including the most-watched game season to date: Fox’s telecast of Chiefs-Eagles that drew 33.8 million viewers in Week 2. The only non-Chiefs game to crack the top 5 was NBC Sports’s coverage of Cowboys-Eagles in Week 1, which pulled 28.3 million viewers.
Plus, the NFL has been on a heater, pacing for its most-watched season across TV/digital since 2015. Through Week 11, the league averaged 17.7 million viewers per game, up 6% from the same point last season. NFL games generated 60 of the top 65 shows on TV since kickoff of the new season. Sports had been undercounted for years. As the icing on the cake, Nielsen’s new Big Data measurement may be boosting viewership numbers for live sports by 5% to 10% this season.
The NFL will stage a Turkey Day tripleheader on Thursday. Fox will show Packers-Lions at 1 p.m. ET, followed by Chiefs-Cowboys on CBS at 4:30 p.m. ET and NBC’s primetime telecast of Bengals-Ravens at 8:20 p.m. ET.
Last year’s late-afternoon Thanksgiving game between the Cowboys and Giants averaged 38.8 million viewers, making it the fifth most-watched regular-season game in the NFL’s 105-year history. The early game between the Bears and Lions also generated boffo numbers, averaging 37.5 million viewers.
Notes Myers: “It’s going to take a lot of eyeballs to shatter the record of 42.1 million for Giants-Cowboys on Thanksgiving 2022. But a competitive game between two compelling teams could do it. And just imagine if Taylor Swift shows up in Jerry Jones’s suite.”
