The NFL saw its biggest average audience for Thanksgiving games in 23 years.
The league announced today that the three Thanksgiving games (Bears-Lions, Raiders-Cowboys and Bills-Saints) averaged 29.7 million viewers, which was the highest average viewership for Thanksgiving games since 1998, when there were two games and those two also averaged 29.7 million.
The viewership average was a 9 percent increase over 2020 (when there were only two Thanksgiving games because the pandemic scrambled the schedule) and an 8 percent increase over 2019, when there were also three games.
The most-watched game was Raiders-Cowboys, which totaled 38.3 million viewers (slightly down from the preliminary estimate of 38.5 million) and was the third-most-watched NFL regular-season game ever. Only 1990 Giants-49ers, with 41.5 million viewers, and 1993 Dolphins-Cowboys, with 38.4 million viewers, were watched by more people in NFL regular-season history.
