By Andrew McCartyShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberIn the days leading up to a Thanksgiving Day showdown between the Dallas Cowboys and Kansas City Chiefs, media insiders wondered if the contest would break the previous record for most-watched NFL regular season game.
The previous record came on Thanksgiving in 2022 when the Cowboys and New York Giants drew 42 million viewers on Fox. Last Thursday's game between Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs and Dak Prescott and the Cowboys didn't just surpass that 42 million number – they demolished it.
According to new information from The Athletic's Richard Deitsch, Dallas and Kansas City drew 57.2 million viewers in a thrilling 31-28 victory for Prescott and company – breaking the record by more than 15 million viewers.
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According to Deitsch, the record was intentional.
"The record was not accidental. The NFL made a strategic decision this year to pit its two most-watched teams against each other on its most-watched day of regular-season football," Deitsch revealed. "Viewership is the engine that drives the NFL, and setting a new regular-season viewership record, especially by this much, is news that will cross over from the 'inside baseball' world of sports media and sports business writers into the broader sports-fan ecosystem."
The Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers actually broke the record first, drawing 47.7 million viewers, but couldn't withstand the onslaught from arguably the two most popular teams in the NFL just hours later.
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