Like Bills-Cowboys later in the day, the first game of Thursday’s Thanksgiving NFL tripleheader hit a three-year high in the Nielsens.
Thursday’s Bears-Lions NFL Thanksgiving game averaged a 12.3 rating and 27.09 million viewers on FOX, marking the largest audience for the early Thanksgiving window since 2016 (Vikings-Lions: 27.61M).
Chicago’s win, which peaked with 33.70 million viewers in the fast-nationals, delivered the third-largest audience of the NFL season. Only Bills-Cowboys on CBS later in the day (32.54M) and Cowboys-Patriots on FOX last Sunday (29.47M) averaged more viewers.
FOX has aired three of the season’s top five windows and seven of the top ten.
Versus the same matchup last Thanksgiving, which aired on CBS, ratings were flat and viewership increased 2% from 26.61 million. Compared to Vikings-Lions two years ago, which aired on FOX, ratings and viewership increased 8% and 10% respectively (from 11.4, 24.74M).
Including a streaming audience of 363,000, the largest for a Thanksgiving game on Fox Sports, the game averaged 27.28 million.
Despite pitting sub-.500 teams, Bears-Lions averaged a larger audience than every non-NFL sporting event since the 2018 Winter Olympics, including January’s Clemson-Alabama College Football Playoff National Championship (25.28M).
The game averaged a 7.7 rating in adults 18-49, ranking fourth for the season among NFL games, and a 6.2 in adults 18-34.
[Nielsen estimates from Fox Sports, with additional info from ShowBuzz Daily 12.4]
