Nothing, truly nothing is going right for the Dallas Cowboys. The team is 3-5 in what felt like a make-or-break season for head coach Mike McCarthy and the veteran players, and now quarterback Dak Prescott is heading to IR. Meanwhile, owner Jerry Jones continues to deal with immense criticism from fans and media members alike.

On the other side of the spectrum are the Kansas City Chiefs. Following two straight Super Bowl triumphs, the team has started this season 8-0 despite Patrick Mahomes having one of his worst seasons to this point in his career. While nothing goes right for the Cowboys, everything seemingly goes to plan for the Chiefs.

The Chiefs are getting way higher viewership numbers than the Cowboys

As the two franchises’ fortunes go in opposite directions, the Chiefs look set to even steal the Cowboys’ moniker. Richard Deitsch of The Athletic recently wrote an article explaining why he believes the Chiefs are now “America’s Team“, and not the Cowboys.

The Kansas City Chiefs, and not the Cowboys, deserve the title of “America’s Team” as far as a network viewership play in the near term. In some ways, the change might have happened already as the NFL selected the Chiefs for its newest deep-pocketed partners… Management at all these networks should be advocating heavily for the Chiefs above all other teams, including the Cowboys, for their 2025 schedule… Kansas City will be the bigger television draw down the stretch given the current trajectories and the fact the Chiefs are on a historical run.

As Deitsch points out in his article, Chiefs games take up six of the top eight spots in terms of single-game viewership numbers in 2024. The Cowboys have had three in the top 10, but only one in the top eight.

The team’s immense success, plus having Mahomes, contributes heavily to that. But so does the Taylor Swift factor, as well as bitter fans of other teams watching, hoping they lose.