For all of the complaints surrounding having one of the biggest games of the NFL season air on the NFL Network, Packers/Cowboys did extremely well last Thursday night.
The showdown of 10-1 teams drew 10.1 million viewers on the NFL Network, making the game the highest rated event in the network’s history. Packers/Cowboys drew a 14.6 cable rating, meaning 14.6% of television households with access to the NFL Network tuned into the game. The game finished as the 11th highest rated television program of the entire year on cable.
To put the 10.1 million viewers in perspective, the Louisville/Rutgers college football game on ESPN and the New York Knicks/Boston Celtics NBA game on TNT drew 2.1 and 1.5 million viewers, respectively, on the same night. More impressive is the fact that the 10.1 million viewers exceeds the total from any game of the 2007 NBA Finals on ABC, and the final rounds of both the U.S. Open on NBC and the PGA Championship on CBS — both of which featured Tiger Woods in the final pairing.
The 10.1 million viewers compares favorably to ESPN Monday Night Football coverage. This season, ESPN’s most watched Monday night game was a Packers/Broncos overtime tilt that drew 14 million viewers. The Monday before Packers/Cowboys, the Steelers/Dolphins MNF game drew 13.1 million viewers; that game was the only event on cable for the entire week to draw more viewers than Packers/Cowboys.
Compared to other NFL Network telecasts, Packers/Cowboys is far and away the highest rated and most viewed. On Thanksgiving, Colts/Falcons drew 4.2 million viewers with a 5.0 cable rating. The highest rated NFL Network telecast last season was Cowboys/Falcons, which drew a 7.4.
The big turn-out for the game can be viewed in a variety of ways. The NFL certainly wasted an opportunity to draw an even bigger audience either on basic cable (ESPN) or broadcast (NBC or FOX). Packers/Cowboys could have easily set a new record for the most watched event on cable had the game aired on ESPN; with 10.1 million viewers on a network with only 43 million subscribers, the game could have easily surpassed the record 17.2 million viewers who watched High School Musical 2 over the summer, had it aired on a network with the reach of ESPN. Additionally, this game would have been a lock for a huge rating on NBC or FOX, certainly the game would have drawn at least a 16.
One could also view the number as a bit of a defeat for the NFL. One of the main points of rhetoric for the league in its battles against cable operators is the idea that few fans will be able to watch the games. The 10.1 million viewers clearly indicates that fans will find a way to consume the NFL product; the game was the second most watched event on cable all week. Cable operators could easily point to this as evidence of the fact that viewers are able to find and watch the NFL Network without having it placed on a basic cable tier.
No matter how one looks at it, however, there is no question that overall, the big numbers for Packers/Cowboys are a definite win for the NFL. Once again, the league’s dominance in the American sports landscape has been reinforced.
