In a strong week for the NFL in primetime, the Cowboys’ latest defeat delivered the top Week 14 Monday Night Football audience in 23 years.
The latest edition of NFL Monday Night Football (Bengals-Cowboys) averaged 18.7 million viewers across the ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN+ and ESPN Deportes, marking the largest Week 14 MNF audience since 2001, when Chiefs-Patriots drew 19.6 million on ABC alone. (There is no relevant comparison to Week 14 last year, when ESPN and ABC aired an overlapping doubleheader.)
The Bengals’ narrow win, which peaked with 20.2 million viewers in the 9:15 PM ET quarter-hour, posted the third-largest MNF audience this season — trailing only Buccaneers-Chiefs in Week 9 (20.63M) and Jets-49ers in Week 1 (20.44M). The 5-8 Cowboys have played in two of the top six MNF games this season, with their Week 11 matchup with Houston averaging just shy of 17 million.
Keep in mind that none of the above figures include the “Funday Football” alternate presentation on ESPN+ — in which the game was animated in the style of “The Simpsons” and featured characters from the show — as that telecast was not Nielsen-rated.
Week 14 was strong across the board in primetime. On Sunday night, the Chiefs’ latest thriller against the Chargers averaged 22.8 million viewers on NBC’s Sunday Night Football (including streaming viewership tracked by Adobe Analytics) — still down 14% from last year (Eagles-Cowboys: 26.5M), but the most-watched edition of SNF in over a month (Week 8 Cowboys-49ers: 23.9M).
In addition, as previously noted, Packers-Lions delivered the largest Thursday Night Football audience in the Amazon era.
Shifting to the afternoon, FOX averaged 24 million viewers for national window coverage featuring Rams-Bills — down 8% from coverage on CBS featuring Bills-Chiefs last year (26M). The network’s early window drew 11.6 million, down 23% from a year ago (mostly Jaguars-Browns: 15.0M).
Rounding out the Sunday slate, CBS drew 15.1 million for its singleheader — down 11% from coverage on FOX last year (ft. Seahawks-49ers: 17.0M).
