After shattering all prior records for Thanksgiving Day viewership, the National Football League and its rights holders believe there is no ceiling to what is possible on the holiday. 

The league posted an average audience of 44.7 million viewers across the three Thanksgiving games, the highest such figure for the holiday on record, and a massive 30% jump from the prior aggregate viewership record set just a year ago. The totals were led by the late-afternoon thriller between the Chiefs and Cowboys on CBS that averaged 57.2 million viewers and set an NFL record for the most-watched game in the regular season, and nearly matched the audience for the American Football Conference championship game last season between the Bills and Chiefs.

The early afternoon game between the Packers and Lions on Fox, averaging 47.7 million viewers, and the primetime matchup between the Bengals and Ravens on NBC, averaging 28.4 million, similarly set new milestones for those respective broadcast windows.

TV Execs Want More 

With the series of records in place, prior expectations of what can be achieved, now or in the future, are quickly being thrown out the window.

“There’s a lot of room to keep growing,” said Fox Sports president of insights and analytics Mike Mulvihill. “It wasn’t that long ago that we thought 100 million viewers for the Super Bowl was about as high as it could go. Now we’re approaching 130 million. 

“We keep hitting new heights all the time, across all sports, but particularly in the NFL. As we keep ramping up the entertainment experience, the production value, and as we keep coming back to the idea that this is an increasingly rare opportunity for people to share a special experience, those [opportunities] are only going to become more scarce and more valuable, and it will drive the audiences even higher,” Mulvihill said. 

Added CBS Sports president David Berson, “Every time we hit a record, people ask, ‘Can we exceed it?’ and we continue to [do so]. The power of the NFL is just incredible.”

Strategic Scheduling

The NFL moved the start time of the Packers-Lions game by a half hour to 1 p.m. ET, and it was rewarded with an audience that, while dwarfed by the following game, also easily beat the draw for any other regular-season game in its history. 

Part of that shift owed to prior analytics showing strong viewership spikes after 2:30 p.m. for last year’s Thanksgiving game with the Lions in that early window. NFL EVP of media distribution Hans Schroeder said the league will continue to pay close attention to such trends as it sets the schedule, and future matchups, for Thanksgiving games.

Schroeder, however, said there are no larger shifts in the immediate plans, such as adding a fourth game to the Thanksgiving schedule.

“We’re going to be smarter. The commissioner is always pushing to improve,” Schroeder said in response to a Front Office Sports question about the future Thanksgiving schedule. “But we also love the lineup we have, and the partnerships we have with Fox, CBS, and NBC.”

Metrics Matters

A conference call the NFL held Wednesday with the three Thanksgiving broadcasters to herald the audience featured plenty of plaudits for Nielsen. That represented a rather different sentiment from the start of the season, when the media measurement agency introduced its Big Data + Panel methodology, only to have the league say “there’s more work to be done.”

In particular, the league and networks credited Nielsen for recent changes to capture viewership data much more broadly, including a separate expansion of out-of-home audiences. 

“The scorekeeping in this business has finally caught up to the reality, the power that sports has to bring us together,” Mulvihill said. “The numbers finally reflect the reality that’s been in place for many, many years, and it’s a welcome change.”

Schroeder, however, said the NFL is still working with Nielsen to refine elements of the Big Data + Panel measurement process.

“We still think there’s more opportunity [for further audience growth] once the Big Data element gets captured by Nielsen appropriately,” he said. 

Not all schools have signed the agreement that would give power to the new college sports enforcement entity.

Two weeks ago, power conference offices sent schools the finalized version of the College Sports Commission participant agreement—which would give the group the power to enforce rules set by the House v. NCAA settlement. Conferences asked schools to sign by Wednesday, Dec. 3.

But after public pushback from Texas Tech, questions from other schools behind the scenes, and intervention from Texas’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, power conference schools won’t all sign the participant agreement by the Wednesday deadline, sources confirm to Front Office Sports. The concept of agreement isn’t dead, but the current version of it may not end up being final. 

Multiple schools are still having internal discussions with conferences about the document, one source familiar with the matter said. 

In addition, Tennessee’s attorney general Jonathan Skrmetti sent a letter Wednesday expressing “grave concern” about schools signing the agreement. The letter was cosigned by Paxton, as well as state AGs from New Jersey, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

The continued pushback is significant given that the CSC’s agreement says its provisions wouldn’t take effect unless 68 power conference schools sign on. Without the document, it’s unclear whether the CSC would have any teeth. 

The College Sports Commission was created last summer to oversee and enforce the rules of the new House v. NCAA settlement, including the revenue-sharing cap (starting at $20.5 million per school this year), a requirement to submit NIL (name, image, and likeness) deals for scrutiny and a ban on “pay-for-play” deals, roster limits, and more. The CSC will also investigate rules violations and assign punishments.

The participant agreement itself would bind schools to the terms of the settlement and require them to cooperate in rules violation investigations. It would also make schools potentially liable for violations committed by NIL collectives or athletes, waive some of the schools’ rights to sue, and punish schools if associated entities like collectives or state attorneys general sue the CSC at their request.

Schools had received a copy of the agreement to send feedback earlier this year. Ultimately, the agreement was negotiated between the conference commissioners. 

At least two schools—including Texas Tech—had gripes with the agreement and considered not signing it, sources previously told FOS. Texas Tech University System general counsel Eric Bentley penned a letter advising the school not to sign, FOS first reported. 

Days later, Paxton published a letter saying the agreement was “unlawful” and “riddled with problems”—he wrote that none of the six power conference schools in Texas (Texas, Texas Tech, SMU, TCU, Houston, and Baylor) should sign. Paxton also published a letter calling for other attorneys general to send similar letters to their power conference schools. 

Skrmetti’s letter, sent Wednesday to the power conference commissioners and CSC CEO Bryan Seeley, echoes these concerns. “There are real problems in college sports that need to be solved but this Agreement just means more wasted time before we get a real solution,” he said in a statement.

Over the past few months, the CSC has at least begun its enforcement process. Schools have been utilizing the NIL Go system to submit deals for approval and have access to a cap management system. The CSC has also hired a head of enforcement and begun receiving and pursuing tips about violations.

Meanwhile, rules violations are technically already occurring, with some NIL collectives bypassing approval to pay players.

Some schools also plan to offer players more than the revenue-sharing “cap.” The cap is $20.5 million per school for all sports combined. However, LSU, for example, was reported to have guaranteed more than $25 million for new coach Lane Kiffin to build his football roster alone. (It’s unclear whether those funds promised would run afoul of rules, however; schools have a cap on revenue-sharing dollars, but no cap on how many NIL deals they can arrange for players—so long as those deals are for a valid business purpose and offer fair-market value compensation.)

The CSC likely needs the power conference schools to be on board with the agreement to effectively investigate rules violations. In a previous statement to FOS, the CSC wrote: “Each of these institutions has already proactively chosen to participate in the new system – either by opting in to revenue sharing or agreeing to the House settlement. Signing the participant agreement is a logical next step in building a sustainable enforcement system and will allow the College Sports Commission to effectively deliver on what was agreed to in the settlement.”

The NFL, for a second consecutive year, is set to clash with the first round of the College Football Playoff, and TNT Sports will once again have to compete with the NFL for viewers while ABC and ESPN avoid the head-to-head conflicts, despite some scheduling shifts.

This week, the NFL released the kickoff times for its Week 16 Saturday doubleheader on Dec. 20, the same day three of the four first-round CFP games will be played. Here’s the schedule (all times ET):

• Noon: CFP first round (ABC/ESPN)
• 3:30 p.m.: CFP first round (TNT Sports)
• 5 p.m.: Eagles-Commanders (Fox)
• 7:30 p.m.: CFP first round (TNT Sports)
• 8:20 p.m.: Packers-Bears (Fox)

ABC and ESPN are also simulcasting a CFP first-round game on Dec. 19 at 8 p.m. CFP first-round games will be announced Sunday after the final rankings are revealed.

Not Quite Déjà Vu

The NFL vs. CFP schedule looks a little different than it did last year, when the NFL significantly outdrew the CFP games it went head-to-head with:

• Noon: Penn State 38, SMU 10: 6.4 million (TNT Sports)
• 1 p.m.: Chiefs 27, Texans 19: 15.5 million (NBC)
• 4 p.m.: Texas 38, Clemson 24: 8.6 million (TNT Sports)
• 4:30 p.m.: Ravens 34, Steelers 17: 15.4 million (Fox)

In other first-round CFP action last year, ABC and ESPN drew 13.4 million viewers for Notre Dame’s 27–17 win over Indiana on Friday night, and 14.3 million viewers for Ohio State’s 42–17 victory over Tennessee in prime time Saturday. Those games did not overlap with any NFL broadcasts.

ESPN, the CFP’s sole media-rights holder since its inception in 2014, last year struck a sublicensing deal with TNT Sports for two first-round games in 2024 and 2025, and then an additional two quarterfinal games starting in 2026. ESPN is also expected to give TNT Sports one CFP semifinal game in 2026–28.