Thanksgiving Day once again came through for the National Football League.
According to Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal, the NFL avereaged 34.2 million viewers across its three Thanksgiving Day contests. That would make last Thursday’s games the most-watched Thanksgiving on record (which dates back to 1988).
The @NFL had its most-watched Thanksgiving ever, with the 3 games averaging 34.2 million viewers (records back to 1988)
CBS’ Bears-Lions = 37.5 million viewers (most-watched early Thanksgiving game on record)
Fox’s Giants-Cowboys = 38.8 million (4th best Thanksgiving game ever)
— Austin Karp (@AustinKarp) December 3, 2024
Last week, both Fox and NBC reported viewership for their respective games while CBS — still at an impasse with audience measurement firm Nielsen — did not. Now, for the first time, we are seeing how truly close the Chicago Bears-Detroit Lions game at 12:30 p.m. ET on CBS was to beating Fox’s 4:30 p.m. ET game between the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys.
Officially, Fox clocked in at 38.8 million viewers for Giants-Cowboys while CBS came just behind with an audience of 37.5 million for Bears-Lions. That is the closest the margin has ever been between the Cowboys and Lions Thanksgiving Day games since at least 2014. The previous closest margin was 1.54 million viewers in 2017.
Bears-Lions proved to be the most-watched early window Thanksgiving game on record. Giants-Cowboys, as Fox previously announced, was the fourth most-watched Thanksgiving game ever (though Nielsen did not include out-of-home viewing figures prior to 2020, which substantially boosts holiday viewership numbers).
In terms of year-over-year comparisons, Fox’s Giants-Cowboys game was down 7% versus last year’s comparable game (41.76 million viewers for Commanders-Cowboys). Bears-Lions was up 11% versus Packers-Lions last season (33.7 million viewers). NBC’s primetime game featuring the Miami Dolphins and Green Bay Packers averaged 26.3 million, up 6% versus 49ers-Seahawks last year (24.78 million viewers).
Considering the quality of matchups, the NFL has to be pleased with securing a record-setting Thanksgiving audience this season. Though the numbers have undoubtedly been buoyed by Nielsen’s methodological changes throughout the years, television audiences above 30 million don’t come around often.
The large holiday audiences also throw more weight behind the NFL’s apparent strategy to schedule less-than-stellar games on Thanksgiving, knowing people will tune in anyway. With the success of this year’s slate, don’t expect the league to trot out an overly compelling matchup next season.
