Despite being a battle of two backup quarterbacks, Thursday’s Thanksgiving tilt between the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys is the most-watched game so far this NFL season.
According to Fox Sports PR, the Cowboys’ seven-point victory over the Giants secured an audience of 38.5 million viewers, which will almost certainly be the most-watched NFL game during the regular season. The audience peaked at 41.3 million viewers during the 6:00 p.m. ET quarter hour.
Pass the turducken! 🦃
The @DallasCowboys Thanksgiving victory on FOX earned 38.5 million viewers and projects to rank as the most-watched NFL telecast this regular season on any network.
The game peaked at 41.3 million viewers from 6:00-6:15 PM ET. pic.twitter.com/7Uce1TVONP
— FOX Sports PR (@FOXSportsPR) November 29, 2024
The game earned Fox a 14% increase over it’s Thanksgiving game in 2023, though with the major caveat that the network aired the Green Bay Packers-Detroit Lions game in the 12:30 p.m. ET window last year. That game drew 33.70 million viewers.
A more clear comparison would be to the Washington Commanders-Dallas Cowboys game at 4:30 p.m. ET on CBS, which averaged 41.76 million viewers. By that metric, Fox’s Giants-Cowboys game this season saw an 8% decline year-over-year.
Giants-Cowboys is also good for the fourth most-watched Thanksgiving Day game on record, though Nielsen’s inclusion of out-of-home viewing figures since 2020 have drastically changed how holiday audiences are measured. Holiday audiences prior to the inclusion of out-of-home viewing figures were substantially under-counted, making comparisons to years prior to the 2020 methodological change apples-to-oranges.
Nevertheless, the game seemingly beat out its other Thanksgiving Day competition on CBS and NBC. The primetime Miami Dolphins-Green Bay Packers game averaged 26.6 million viewers when including streaming numbers. Exact viewership figures for the Chicago Bears-Detroit Lions game on CBS were not immediately available. Giants-Cowboys was the most-watched telecast on any network since the Kansas City Chiefs-San Francisco 49ers Super Bowl matchup in February.
Massive Holiday Audience for Dolphins-Packers Matchup on NBC, Peacock and Telemundo Deportes
More: https://t.co/Vt6wMwyK5z pic.twitter.com/6qkI6eBGyM
— NBC Sports PR (@NBCSportsPR) November 29, 2024
Prior to Thanksgiving, there was some speculation the lackluster quarterback matchup would give the early afternoon Bears-Lions game a chance to draw the larger audience. That does not appear to be the case, even with that game coming down to the wire.
It goes to show just how little the quality of matchup impacts the NFL’s Thanksgiving viewership. In recent years, the league has opted to schedule underwhelming games on the holiday, saving marquee matchups for weeks that don’t have a significant built-in audience. Of course, Giants-Cowboys was a blockbuster matchup on paper, but wasn’t in reality given the quarterback situation on both teams.
Given the circumstances, Fox should be pleased with the audience, even with the slight decline from last year.
