As is no surprise in the out-of-home era, the Cowboys’ Thanksgiving Day game delivered a massive audience — if less so than the past few years.
Thursday’s Giants-Cowboys NFL Thanksgiving Day game averaged 38.5 million viewers, marking the Cowboys’ least-watched game on the holiday since 2020 against Washington. The three intervening games each topped 40 million viewers, including the previous Thanksgiving matchup of the Giants and Cowboys two years ago — which drew an NFL regular season record 42.1 million.
The Cowboys’ win, which peaked with 41.28 million in the 6 PM ET quarter-hour, was the most-watched game of this year’s Thanksgiving tripleheader and the fourth-most watched ever on the holiday. As is traditional for the Cowboys’ Thanksgiving game, it also ranks as the most-watched game of the NFL season.
Holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas have always been associated with elevated viewing levels thanks to their associated family gatherings, but their already-considerable audiences have been turbocharged since Nielsen began including out-of-home viewing in its estimates four years ago. It is thus no surprise that this year’s four-year low would still be high enough to surpass all prior years.
Earlier in the day, the Lions’ narrow win over the Bears averaged 37.4 million on CBS — the largest audience on record for a Lions game on the holiday. (Keep in mind the aforementioned out-of-home caveat). Viewership jumped 11% over Packers-Lions on FOX last year (33.70M). As is again typical for Thanksgiving, the game was the second-most watched of the NFL season.
Bears-Lions was the only game of the day to post an increase over last year. The 1.5 million viewer gap between the Lions and Cowboys games is the smallest since 2012.
In the nightcap, NBC drew 24.18 million for Dolphins-Packers — down 2% from 49ers-Seahawks last year (24.78M).
