Cowboys vs. Steelers: How Many People Watched?

NFL returned Thursday night with a large audience

If there is anything to draw from the NFL's first preseason game Thursday night, it's that fans crave pro football. In any form.

The Hall of Fame Game is the NFL's first preseason game each year, kicking off the preseason in Canton, Ohio, as the league and its fans celebrate the enshrinement of a new class of Pro Football Hall of Famers.

After the entire 2020 preseason was wiped out, including the annual Hall of Fame Game, NFL fans welcomed the sight of the Cowboys and the Steelers at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium on Thursday night.

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It's a preseason game, an exhibition game, with not much impact other than possible roster spots for the two teams involved, and very few stars played any part of the game.

How many fans were interested in watching second- and third-string players in a nationally televised exhibition game?

Fox announced the game drew 7.326 million viewers.

That's a huge number for a meaningless game with very few recognizable stars. But at the same time, it's football. Real football. And Cowboys vs Steelers. And the first football we've seen since February 7. That's almost six months with no football and, judging from the audience size, that's long enough.

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The viewer numbers represent a 37-percent increase over the last Hall of Fame Game, in 2019, which drew 5.343 million viewers. It also makes it the most-watched preseason game in the NFL in four seasons.

The Cowboys and Steelers have two of the league’s largest and most passionate fan bases, which surely helped the numbers. This year’s double-sized Hall of Fame enshrinement class, which features players like Peyton Manning, Cliff Harris, Drew Pearson, Jimmy Johnson and Charles Woodson, also probably helped draw attention to this year’s Hall of Fame festivities.

The fact that more than 7 million people tuned in to watch a preseason game is good for the NFL, which is still seeing great viewership numbers in a time when network television viewership, in general, has seen significantly declining numbers. 

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