From Punch Line to Prime Time: Lions Have Captured America’s Attention

The Lions were an NFL laughingstock for decades, with viewers bemoaning their annual appearance on Thanksgiving Day games. But NFL fans are not laughing at coach Dan Campbell’s scrappy squad anymore. 

Heading into the NFL playoffs, the 15–2 Lions are the No. 1 seed in the NFC. Viewers have caught on; the Lions are challenging the mighty Cowboys as one of the league’s most popular TV draws. 

The same people who scoffed when the NFL paired the Lions with the Chiefs for the league’s 2023 opening kickoff game are voting with their TV remotes. The Lions could become the Cinderella team of the NFL playoffs. And the Cowboys? As Charles Barkley would say, they’ve gone fishin’ until next season.

As FOS has reported, Patrick Mahomes’s defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs are America’s new top TV team, costarring in three of the five most-watched regular-season games in 2024—and eight of the top 20. 

But the Lions appeared in four of the 20 most-watched games this season. That ties them with the vaunted Cowboys—as well as the Packers and Ravens.

Yes, the Cowboys beat the Lions for the regular season’s most-watched regular-season game on Thanksgiving Day. But Giants-Cowboys—which averaged a season-high 38.8 million viewers—was broadcast in Fox Sports’ marquee 4:30 p.m. ET window. Despite kicking off at 12:30 p.m. on Turkey Day, Bears-Lions came close, averaging 37.5 million viewers on CBS.

This season’s viewership represents a changing of the guard. For decades, the Cowboys were the league’s ratings juggernaut. America’s Team won its last Super Bowl in 1996. Even though they stunk this season, Cris Collinsworth admitted NBC’s Sunday Night Football would air 17 Cowboys games if they were allowed to.

“I’m not kidding. It doesn’t matter what their record is,” Collinsworth told Dan Patrick.

Given their glamorous Super Bowl pedigrees, the Steelers, Packers, and 49ers boast the biggest national fan bases. Ditto for the Giants, Jets, and Bears since they play in the country’s first- and third-largest TV markets. But the emergence of the Lions and Ravens has benefited the NFL’s TV partners. Especially since the league suffered a 2.2% drop in viewership this season, with games averaging 17.5 million viewers across all networks.

Campbell’s high-risk, high-reward coaching style, and the emergence of stars like running back Jahmyr Gibbs, have made the Lions must-see TV. It wouldn’t surprise me if they generated the biggest audience during the NFL’s divisional weekend. Chiefs-Lions would be a dream matchup for Fox Sports’ coverage of Super Bowl LIX on Feb. 9. In February, the CBS telecast of the 25–22 Chiefs overtime win over the 49ers set the record for most-watched Big Game in history, with 123.4 million average viewers across all platforms. 

Mike Greenberg, host of ESPN’s Get Up, points to Campbell’s charisma, and Detroit’s high-octane offense, as key reasons for their newfangled TV popularity. Many fans have fallen in love with the Lions, he says.

“They’re essentially a founding franchise of the NFL. So they have a huge and long-suffering fan base,” Greenberg says. “People like to see these perennial losers [succeed]. Maybe not quite to the same level when the Cubs finally won the World Series. But I think there’s an element of that.”