Whether they are good, bad, or boring, the Dallas Cowboys always have most of their games in nationally televised windows.
In spite of a quiet offseason (George Pickens notwithstanding) and the underwhelming promotion of Brian Schottenheimer, the 7-10 Cowboys have the second most primetime games in the NFL in the 2025 schedule at six games, only behind the Kansas City Chiefs with seven. That’s the kind of love you get when you are America’s Team even though you haven’t been to a Super Bowl in over 30 years.
But their drawing power on national television goes well beyond primetime as many other games are reserved for the main late Sunday afternoon window on Fox, and sometimes on CBS. This late afternoon window is oftentimes the most watched game of the week, even including primetime showcases. And on Thanksgiving 2025, CBS may get a record audience with a rare Chiefs-Cowboys game.
Cris Collinsworth once said that he would take the Cowboys playing on Sunday Night Football every week because of their drawing power. We know how much ESPN looooooooooves anything involving the Cowboys. And to hear a network say they would actually want fewer Dallas Cowboys games would immediately invoke shareholder meetings about media companies abandoning their fiduciary responsibilities to shareholders.
But that’s exactly what Fox Sports wanted for their 2025 NFL schedule.
Fox Sports executive Michael Mulvihill admitted in an article by Richard Deitsch at The Athletic that the network was actually just fine with letting go of some Dallas Cowboys games in order to diversify the precious late afternoon window and feature more true contenders. These include the Lions, Eagles, and Commanders but also more AFC teams and their treasure trove of star quarterbacks.
“Of our 4:25 p.m. games, only three of them are Cowboys games,” Mulvihill said. “In other years, we’ve gone looking for five or six Dallas games at 4:25. What we wanted for this year was more AFC, more Philly, but also more Detroit and a little more Washington to try to capitalize on the Jayden Daniels story. I think we have a better mix of teams than we’ve had in the past. Sometimes we’ve heard exasperation from fans that the Fox 4:25 game is always the Cowboys. It’s still gonna be the Cowboys sometimes this year, but you’ll see a little bit more variety in terms of top teams in our 4:25 window.”
If you’re wondering why Fox might be willing to shake up its schedule and take on less of its biggest ratings draw, it’s because the network has actually fallen behind CBS in the past two years in ratings. This is an anomaly because Fox pays the NFL more for their NFC rights package given the larger markets in the conference. But the AFC’s star power, especially at the quarterback position, has overcome the inherent deficits in their television package.
The Fox and CBS packages have been somewhat evened out in recent years thanks to cross-flexing between Fox and CBS, allowing games traditionally shown on one network to be aired on the other. And that’s what Fox is leaning into in 2025. Their current America’s Game of the Week schedule features the Bengals and Bills twice (including against each other in an AFC game) and the Chiefs in a Super Bowl rematch against the Eagles.
We have some 🔥 matchups coming your way this season in America’s Game of the Week on FOX 🏈 pic.twitter.com/gu2zmbfgSS
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) May 15, 2025
But what’s perhaps even more striking is that the Detroit Lions are featured just as prominently as the Dallas Cowboys, with four appearances planned for the late afternoon window on Fox. That gives more credence to the theory that the Lions may slowly be gaining ground on the Cowboys in popularity, at least where the networks are concerned.
The Dallas Cowboys are never going to turn into the Jacksonville Jaguars or Tennessee Titans when it comes to their favoritism and media coverage. But it is telling that the languid state of their franchise and the rising interest in other stars and teams might finally be breaking putting some cracks in their armor as the NFL’s top draw.