The 2025 NFL season will be remembered as one of the worst for the Dallas Cowboys.
Glaring defensive breakdowns that ultimately cost the Cowboys critical games and forced the club to part ways with defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus after the season.
In a campaign that ended with a 7-9-1 record and no playoff berth for the second straight year, Dallas nonetheless played a central role in the league’s biggest audience numbers of the year.
Their Thanksgiving Day showdown against the Kansas City Chiefs became the most-watched regular-season game in NFL history, drawing more than 57 million viewers on CBS, a record that stood above every other contest on the league’s 2025 slate.
Ironically, Dallas‘ on-field frustrations, including a late-season skid that extinguished any realistic playoff hopes, did nothing to dampen interest from casual and diehard fans alike.
The league as a whole enjoyed one of its most successful TV seasons in history, with the 2025 regular season averaging 18.7 million viewers per game, the second-highest average since Nielsen began tracking in 1988.
That surge was driven in part by changes in how audiences are measured, including broader inclusion of out-of-home viewership from bars, airports, and other venues alongside traditional at-home viewing.
But within that uptick, the Cowboys stood out.
Thanksgiving became the annual viewing pinnacle
For many NFL fans, Thanksgiving remains synonymous with football, and this season was no exception.
Over the holiday, three games set unprecedented numbers. The Cowboys–Chiefs matchup was the centerpiece, with its 57.3 million viewers not simply topping the day but eclipsing all other regular-season telecasts.
Even the earlier game between the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions pulled in nearly 48 million viewers, itself a record for an early Thanksgiving window, illustrating that football had become the centerpiece of the holiday weekend.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell noted that Thanksgiving and football have become deeply woven into the holiday tradition, a sentiment reflected in the viewing figures.
While the Cowboys didn’t reach the playoffs, they managed to play the most-watched game of the year, setting the league’s television landscape ablaze.
Dallas‘ defense was one of the league’s worst statistical units in 2025, yet its name was attached to the most valuable real estate in football broadcasting.
Off the field, franchise owner Jerry Jones has spent decades transforming the Cowboys into a marketing juggernaut, a brand that resonates both nationally and internationally regardless of wins and losses.
That effort, which has included major media exposure such as a Netflix spotlight and the Cowboys‘ feature on Hard Knocks, may have helped cushion the blow of an underwhelming season by keeping the team in the cultural conversation.
