We know many of you spent Thanksgiving Day eating turkey (well, most of you), visiting with relatives, and watching football. Apparently, a whole lot of you were watching football, as a record 42 million viewers tuned in to Fox Sports and its streaming platform, taking in the Dallas Cowboys against the New York Giants.
A new regular season record was set by the contest, won by Dallas, 28-20. The game matched two NFC East rivals in a bout that will go a long way toward seeing who makes the playoffs.
The Giants were also involved in the previous record-setting game, held on Dec. 3 1990 and featuring Big Blue against the San Francisco 49ers.
Three Texas cities, as well as Las Vegas and Kansas City, were the leading markets for the Thanksgiving game, which was up 3% over last year’s comparable window.
But wait, there’s more.
Not to be outdone, NBC Sports is touting its presentation of the Minnesota Vikings’ down-to-the-wire 33-26 victory over the New England Patriots as the second-most watched Thanksgiving primetime game ever. It averaged a Total Audience Delivery of more than 26 million viewers, based on preliminary data, across NBC TV, Peacock, Telemundo, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL Digital platforms.
Last night’s game, which featured numerous lead changes and a tied score in each quarter, averaged an approximate 25.9 million English-language viewers, ranking behind only the 2015 Bears-Packers game in primetime viewership on Thanksgiving (27.8 million viewers).
In addition, Patriots-Vikings ranks as the most-watched primetime regular season game since NBC Sports’ presentation of “The Return” by Buccaneers QB Tom Brady to New England last season (28.4 million on 10/3/21).
