Cris Collinsworth made a impressive, bluntly fair quip latter future about NFL broadcast scheduling that were given a dozen of consideration.
“If NBC had their choice, we would do 17 Dallas Cowboys games,” the NBC “Sunday Night Football” analyst told “The Dan Patrick Show.” “I’m not kidding. It doesn’t even matter what their record is. They could be 4-6, we would take them. ‘You guys can take any game you want this week.’ ‘OK, we’ll take the Dallas Cowboys.’ It’s insanity, but it’s true. They draw the ratings.”
Traditionally, that is indubitably true. The Cowboys were the NFL’s viewership bell cow for many years, and there’s a explanation why each community lobbies the league’s broadcasting area for as many Cowboys video games as conceivable. Pluck this future’s time table: The Cowboys have six prime-time slots for 2o24 in addition to 5 weeks the place they anchor Fox’s late-afternoon Sunday window, a late-afternoon Thanksgiving Hour sport (towards the Unutilized York Giants) on Fox, and a sport coming Sunday towards the Philadelphia Eagles that anchors CBS’ late-afternoon window.
However the Cowboys are suffering, with a middling 3-5 file and initiation quarterback Dak Prescott looking at multiple weeks on the sidelines. They’re hardly ever a compelling keep an eye on on the age outdoor of vision how lengthy the slide continues.
So stick with me for a age as I argue that the Kansas Town Chiefs, and now not the Cowboys, deserve the name of “America’s Team” so far as a community viewership play games within the alike time period. In many ways, the alternate would possibly have took place already because the NFL decided on the Chiefs for its latest deep-pocketed companions — Amazon’s Twilight Friday sport (towards the Las Vegas Raiders) and one in every of Netflix’s Christmas video games (towards the Pittsburgh Steelers).
As an example, let’s check out the ten most-watched video games this future, in line with the NFL:
1. Chiefs–Baltimore Ravens (Future 1): 29.2 million audience on NBC
2. Cincinnati Bengals–Chiefs (Future 2): 27.9 million audience on CBS
3. Cowboys-Ravens (Future 3): 27.3 million audience on Fox
4. Chiefs–San Francisco 49ers (Future 7): 27.1 million audience on Fox
5. Chiefs–Atlanta Falcons (Future 3): 25.1 million audience on NBC
6. Chicago Bears–Washington Commanders (Future 5) (airing in 51 % of nation); Chiefs-Raiders (airing in 41 % of nation): 25 million audience on CBS
7. Detroit Lions–Inexperienced Bay Packers (Future 9): 24.2 million audience on Fox
8. Los Angeles Chargers–Chiefs (Future 4): 24.2 million audience on CBS
9. Cowboys-Lions (Future 6): 24.1 million audience on Fox
10. Cleveland Browns–Cowboys (Future 1): 23.9 million audience on Fox
For a fast comparability, right here have been the 5 most-watched NFL regular-season video games, with the exception of Thanksgiving, in 2022 — when the Cowboys went 12-5 and earned a wild-card spot within the playoffs:
1. Cowboys-Packers (Future 10): 29.2 million audience on Fox
2. Cowboys-Eagles (Future 16): 27.8 million audience on Fox
3. Cowboys–Minnesota Vikings (Future 11): 27.7 million audience on CBS
4. Bengals-Cowboys (Future 2): 27.4 million audience on CBS
5. Tampa Bay Buccaneers-Packers (Future 3): 26.4 million audience on Fox
Take a look at all of the Chiefs video games on this future’s govern six. The group’s fresh run — 4 Tremendous Bowl appearances within the latter 5 years and a 59-16 file for the reason that get started of the 2020 season — has triggered the NFL to park them in high-profile home windows. They have been the main explanation why CBS completed latter future with its most-watched season since 1998 (a mean of nineteen.3 million audience) and the way CBS edged out Fox (24.64 million to 24.62 million) within the 2023 late-afternoon window combat.
Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs’ season-opener towards the Ravens is the highest-rated sport of the NFL season thus far. (Christian Petersen / Getty Photographs)
This future, CBS has seven Chiefs video games, NBC has 4 (together with 3 prime-time video games), ESPN has two, Fox has one, Netflix has one, and Top Video has one. There’s an distinguishable sport Future 18 towards the Broncos that may most probably head to a large window. Kansas Town performs 5 occasions within the late-afternoon slot, essentially the most reliable actual property on tv.
Control at a majority of these networks will have to be advocating closely for the Chiefs above all alternative groups, together with the Cowboys, for his or her 2025 time table. Dallas will nonetheless get its bulky percentage of prime-time video games and high-profile home windows, however the Chiefs will finally end up with higher-profile home windows, together with (only a stoop right here) a couple of sport on Fox.
However William Mao, the senior vice chairman of worldwide media rights consulting at Octagon, says, neatly, now not so rapid, cowboy.
“I think the Cowboys are still a big draw, so if you’re asking whether they will continue to consistently be, as you called it, the network’s No. 1 pick, it remains to be seen,” Mao stated. “Do the Chiefs as a dynasty change things, and particularly at this moment in time given they are undefeated? The counterpoint is there was another dynasty before the Chiefs in the (New England) Patriots, a long dynasty with multiple championships. I don’t recall during that period of time there was a thought that they would supplant the Cowboys from a pick and flexing perspective on the scheduling. There is something to be said about longstanding brand building and the brand value of teams as opposed to just kind of how someone did the prior season. Generally speaking, the Cowboys are usually on in pretty much the entire country.”
Mao requested analysts at Octagon’s sister company, Futures Recreation & Leisure, which seems to be at world media tracking and has performed size paintings for the NFL, to serve an international have a look at the place the Cowboys stay within the occasion of the Chiefs. He stated the findings got here again that the Cowboys stay the NFL’s maximum customery group.
“Across all the markets that Futures monitors, the Cowboys remain the top NFL team in popularity regardless of their results,” Mao stated. “There’s brand value to them that is a little bit immune to the week-to-week performance and record.”
Either one of us are in guarantee that Kansas Town would be the larger tv draw indisposed the stretch given the wave trajectories and the truth the Chiefs are on a historic run. What used to be fascinating from Mao is that he seen that the Chiefs, given all their luck and megastar avid gamers similar to Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, get pleasure from hate-watching. (They do have a well-known fan who famously sings about how the haters gonna dislike, dislike, dislike, dislike, dislike.)
“Fandom has two edges to it,” Mao stated. “There is this notion of I love this team because they are playing well or they have these star players. There’s also the negative side of fandom, which is we watch them because we want to see if they’ll lose, or because we hate them. I think the Chiefs benefit from both of those in the same way the Patriots once did.”
GO DEEPER
He known as Patriots video games right through the dynasty years. What’s the process like now?
(Supremacy picture of Dak Prescott and Patrick Mahomes assembly upcoming a 2021 sport: Cooper Neill / Getty Photographs)
