According to NFL Network, an estimated 10.7 million people watched Thanksgiving Night’s “Harbowl,” the first-ever head coaching matchup between two brothers with Jim Harbaugh leading San Francisco and older bro Jim manning the sidelines for Baltimore.
The game was the most watched Thursday Night Football cablecast on NFL Network and led the way in the cable primetime ratings. It tops the previous most watched game between New Orleans and Dallas which scored 10.5 million viewers.
Last night’s numbers do not include the viewership from the over the air stations in both Baltimore and the Bay Area.
In addition, last night’s game topped the previous most watched Thanksgiving game on NFL Network by 50%.
Here’s the press release.
49ERS-RAVENS ON THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL MOST-WATCHED GAME EVER ON NFL NETWORK WITH 10.7 MILLION VIEWERS
Ranks as Thanksgiving’s all-time No. 1 show on cable & tops 2010 NFLN Thanksgiving game by 50 percent
Special NFL GameDay Morning pregame show viewership up 138 percent
NFL online & mobile Thanksgiving Day traffic jumps 76 percent
Last night’s San Francisco 49ers-Baltimore Ravens game on NFL Network was watched by an average of 10.7 million viewers (not including over-the-air stations in San Francisco and Baltimore) – ranking as the most-watched program in the eight-year history of NFL Network and the most-watched cable program ever on Thanksgiving (Nielsen cable viewership data available from 1994 to date).
49ers-Ravens topped by 50 percent last year’s NFLN Thanksgiving game (7.1 million viewers for Bengals-Jets, Nov. 25, 2010), which ranks as the No. 2 all-time cable program on Thanksgiving. NFL Network’s previous most-watched game featured the Dallas Cowboys visiting the unbeaten New Orleans Saints on Dec. 19, 2009 (10.5 million viewers).
In addition, the first-ever Thanksgiving morning NFL GameDay Morning pregame show (2.5 hours live beginning at 10:00 AM ET from M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore) drew an average of 419,000 viewers – up 138 percent from the same time period last year.
Through three games, Thursday Night Football is averaging 7.5 million viewers, up 28 percent over 2010.
Complementary coverage of 49ers-Ravens online and via mobile devices drew a 62 percent jump in live streams viewed and a nearly 40 percent increase in unique viewers over last year’s Thanksgiving night game. In addition, NFL digital traffic for full Thanksgiving Day coverage spiked 76 percent.
Thursday Night Football continues with the Seattle Seahawks visiting the Philadelphia Eagles next Thursday Dec. 1 at 8:00 PM ET. The Thursday Night Kickoff pre-game show begins at 6:00 PM ET. All Thursday Night Football games are available in their entirety on NFL Mobile with complementary online coverage via NFL.com/LIVE Thursday Night Football.
And that does it.
