I’ll take “NFL facts you’d never expect” for 1,000, Alex.

You read the headline correctly. The Detroit Lions were the most-watched NFL team during the 2024 regular season. The franchise that was once America’s most-dreaded Thanksgiving tradition is now its favorite team to watch.

According to a report by Anthony Crupi in Sportico, the Lions edged out the Dallas Cowboys — yes, the Dallas freaking Cowboys — as the most-watched team in the NFL this season. The Lions pulled an average national television audience of 22.65 million viewers, just about 175,000 more than America’s Team did.

The Kansas City Chiefs, Green Bay Packers, and Baltimore Ravens rounded out the top-five most-watched teams in the league.

Crupi suggests that the Lions’ high-octane offense is to thank.

“If it’s axiomatic that florid bursts of scoring are fun to watch and that said fun makes for a superior viewing experience, then the Lions’ drawing power is largely self-explanatory,” he writes.

But for some, it may just be the newness that comes with watching a team that hasn’t won anything of note since the merger. The Lions are the feel-good story of the season, and they’re led by a head coach in Dan Campbell that is straight out of a cartoon.

Per Crupi, the Lions were one of just nine teams in the NFL to increase their local ratings year-over-year. Detroit managed a 10% increase over last season. Only the Houston Texans saw a bigger jump this year.

The Lions’ viewership is perhaps even more impressive when looking at their score differential. Generally speaking, close games rate higher than blowouts. But the Lions put up an average score differential of 15.5 points per game. That’s not exactly close, though the team did play in nine games decided by one possession this season, so perhaps their scores were a bit boom-or-bust.

Surprisingly, this isn’t the first time the Detroit Lions have ranked atop the NFL viewership list in recent years. In 2022, the Lions also were the most-watched NFL team in nationally televised games, but with a pretty massive caveat. They only appeared in two national games, with one being on Thanksgiving. This season, the Lions appeared in a national slot 10 times, making the accomplishment much more legitimate.

It’s a long time coming for one of the NFL’s most historically downtrodden franchises. Maybe a deep postseason run can juice the team’s popularity even more.