As predicted, the NFL saw its biggest regular season audiences ever tune into its Thanksgiving Day matchups this year.

The Dallas Cowboys defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in what is now the most-watched regular season NFL game of all time, averaging 57.2M viewers on CBS. Per Nielsen, viewership peaked with 61.3M viewers for the game’s thrilling final minutes leading into the 8 p.m. eastern hour.

To illustrate just how large that audience is, it shattered the previous Thanksgiving record of 42.1M viewers for last year’s Bears-Lions game by 27% and rivals January’s AFC Championship game, when the Chiefs bested the Buffalo Bills to make it to yet another Super Bowl.
 
Technically speaking, the Green Bay Packers vs. Detroit Lions actually was the previous record holder for just a few short hours. Earlier on Thanksgiving Day, 47.7M people tuned in to watch that game, which is also quite a hefty audience. For reference, last year’s most-watched Thanksgiving matchup between the Cowboys and the New York Giants averaged 38.8M.

Though it was quite a big dip from the daytime audiences, last Thursday’s primetime game between the Cincinnati Bengals and Baltimore Ravens averaged 28.4M viewers, up +7% versus last year’s primetime game between the Packers and Miami Dolphins. 

In all, all three games averaged 44.7M viewers, the highest ever for Thanksgiving Day, far surpassing last year’s record-setting 34.5M.

Per the NFL, digital streaming across platforms delivered an average minute audience of 2.2M, which is the highest on record for Thanksgiving Day and up +58% versus last year. 

The NFL is expected to have its most-watched regular season ever, and the proof is in these Thanksgiving Day games. Data is not yet available for Prime Video’s Black Friday matchup between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Chicago Bears, though that is likely to have a decent showing as well.

Through Week 11, the league’s viewership was up about 6% across all regular season games.