The actual on-field product across the National Football League has declined in 2024, thanks to defensive dominance, poor quarterback play, and the usual run of injuries. But the league’s popularity on television continues to soar, thanks in large part to audiences that don’t actually care that much about the product they’re watching.
Joe Pompliano posted on X about television ratings for the slate of NFL games on Thanksgiving Day, and they were, as he described, “completely insane.”
The 34.2 million average viewers per game, 37.5 million for the Detroit Lions and Chicago Bears and 38.8 million viewers for the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys. Those numbers represent the largest Thanksgiving Day audience ever for the NFL’s games.
Even the late game, between the Miami Dolphins and Green Bay Packers, pulled in 26.6 million viewers. The NFL is unstoppable, and it has sports betting to thank.
Nov 28, 2024; Detroit, Michigan, USA; Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams (18) passes the ball in opposition to the Detroit Lions through the first half at Ford Area. Obligatory Credit score: David Reginek-Imagn Photographs
NFL Relying On Sports activities Betting To Generate Curiosity
The Lions-Bears recreation was usually terrible; the primary half noticed Chicago generate roughly 50 yards of offense. The Giants-Cowboys recreation was quarterbacked by Drew Lock and Cooper Rush. It was even uglier than it sounds, with lower than 400 mixed passing yards, only one passing landing and an interception.
Not one of the Thanksgiving Day video games represented one of the best the NFL has to supply. Nevertheless it does not matter, as a result of folks watch what they’re betting on.
Playing on soccer has turn out to be a practice for thousands and thousands of Individuals sitting at dwelling all day on holidays consuming and watching tv. The NFL has benefited from that phenomenon, at the same time as tough as it’s to win cash on prop bets or beating the Vegas odds.
If followers have cash on one thing, they watch. And the NFL is the proper vessel for placing cash on sports activities. That is the place baseball falls brief; there’s too many video games, unfold out over too many days, and neither Memorial Day or July 4 have the form of significance and “sit at dwelling” universality that Thanksgiving has.
It is a testomony to the ability of sports activities betting in fashionable society that 10s of thousands and thousands of individuals are more than pleased to tune in to among the ugliest soccer we have ever seen.
