NFL is king:

Couple of takeaways here:

  1. Unfortunately the Cowboys are still “America’s Team.” 80% of the top five most-watched games include these jokers. They just have so many cockroach fans spread around the nation, infesting over-the-air and digital media streams.
  2. The NFC East appeared six times on this list. Just huge numbers pulled by those Cowboys/Giants and Cowboys/Eagles games.
  3. That Bills/Lions game opened the Thanksgiving slate.

One theory is this –

The Cowboys get a ton of regular season viewers because their fans know that a playoff run is not coming. You get 17 games and then a first-round exit, so you have to get your viewership in early. It’s a good hypothetical! Definitely backed up by evidence.

As far as other TV shows, Sportico notes that the NFL had 19 of the top 20 most-watched broadcasts in America this year. The only thing to break through was Biden’s State of the Union address, which finished 7th. Everything else in the top 20 included the Super Bowl, the playoff games, and even regular season games pulling upward of 25 million viewers. It’s insane how dominant the NFL is. Nothing else even comes close to sniffing the NFL’s TV and digital jock strap.