Move over stuffing, mashed potatoes, and green bean casserole. A new Thanksgiving side dish has emerged: college basketball.
Yes, while you slip into your tryptophan-induced coma, television networks are counting on you not to flip channels so they can score their largest college basketball audiences of the year. At this point, it’s a tried and true strategy, one which both CBS and Fox deployed this Thanksgiving.
And the early returns are proving once again that the strategy pays off. According to Fox, Thursday’s Michigan State-North Carolina game, which aired immediately following the Green Bay Packers-Detroit Lions game, averaged 5.49 million viewers, setting a new high watermark for the network as the most-watched college basketball game in its history. The previous record came during the same post-Thanksgiving NFL slot two years ago, 5.18 million viewers for Michigan State-Arizona.
As one would expect, the game peaked in the 4:30 p.m. ET quarter-hour immediately following the NFL game. The peak saw 13.4 million viewers. It is not yet known what percentage of Fox’s NFL audience that figure would represent; viewership for the Thanksgiving NFL games will be announced later this week.
It is important to note that the viewership measurement for Thursday’s game utilizes Nielsen’s new Big Data + Panel methodology, as well as the company’s expanded out-of-home viewership measurements, both of which were not implemented two years ago at the time of Fox’s previous record.
Regardless, this window for a college basketball game is what network executives would now consider a “no-brainer.” Such powerful live sports lead-ins are few and far between, but Thanksgiving NFL games provide that opportunity.
Later on Thursday night, CBS employed the same strategy, airing Duke-Arkansas immediately following the Kansas City Chiefs-Dallas Cowboys game. Viewership for that contest is not immediately available, but one would imagine it’ll be similarly large to the Fox audience.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.