While putting the Dallas Cowboys in a national window usually leads to strong viewership, a blowout involving the Cowboys somewhat mitigates the strong audience we generally expect from their games. This is what happened in Week 10 to Fox Sports.
The Cowboys’ 49-17 defenestration of the New York Giants averaged 21.73 million viewers in Fox’s national window on Sunday. While that game led the way across Week 10 action, it was down significantly from both last year and last week, a tight Eagles win over the Cowboys that drew a season-high of 27.14 million viewers for Fox.
The Week 10 Cowboys-Giants game was the least-watched national window of the season since Week 1, which featured doubleheaders on both CBS and Fox.
In the early half of its doubleheader, Fox averaged 12.52 million viewers for a three-game slate highlighted by the 49ers’ blowout win over the Jaguars. That’s down from last year, but up from last week.
CBS was a bright spot for the league on Sunday. The network’s five-game singleheader window averaged 16.27 million viewers, up from both last year and last week. The network’s strong 2023 season continues, delivering its most-watched season through ten weeks in eight years.
The NFL ON CBS delivers its best Week 10 singleheader in nearly a decade, up +12% vs. last year pic.twitter.com/QzwGZjmIos
— CBS Sports PR (@CBSSportsGang) November 14, 2023
The poor slate of Week 10 games also hurt NFL Network’s broadcast of Colts-Patriots from Germany. Just 4.59 million people watched the game, a 50% decrease from Dolphins-Chiefs the week before and a double-digit decrease from 2022’s comparable Germany game.
NBC’s Sunday Night Football broadcast of the bowling shoe ugly Jets-Raiders game averaged 15.64 million viewers, sliding behind Bears-Chargers in Week 8 (15.72 million) as the season’s least-watched SNF game. It’s also down a tick from Chargers-49ers a year ago.
Finally, Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football viewership continues to grow in its second year of exclusivity. The Bears’ win over the Panthers in Week 10 averaged a season-low 9.56 million viewers (Jaguars-Saints in Week 7 previously held the mark), but it continues the package’s streak of being up double digits from last year. All nine TNF games this season have been up at least 12% in total viewers on a year-to-year basis.
Looking ahead to Week 11, there are some great games on the schedule. TNF kicks the week off with an AFC North clash between the Bengals and Ravens. NBC will have a far less appealing SNF matchup with the Broncos hosting the Vikings, but ESPN has a game-of-the-year candidate in Eagles-Chiefs. Across the afternoon, CBS has the doubleheader with Steelers-Browns early and Jets-Bills late, while Fox has the singleheader featuring Cowboys-Panthers, Bears-Lions, and Bucs-49ers.
[Data via Sports Media Watch]
