National Football League

Lions-Cowboys game averages 42.3 million viewers on Fox

Published Jan. 5, 2015 5:50 p.m. ET

foxsports

NEW YORK (AP) The Detroit-Dallas game Sunday averaged 42.3 million viewers on Fox, the third-highest total in NFL wild-card history.

The broadcast trailed only the San Francisco-Green Bay game last year on Fox at 47.1 million and the 2012 Pittsburgh-Denver game on CBS at 42.4 million, the NFL and Nielsen said Monday. The Lions-Cowboys game was the most-watched telecast since the Academy Awards averaged 43.6 million viewers on ABC in March.

The four wild-card games averaged 29.9 million viewers. The Cincinnati-Indianapolis averaged 28.3 million Sunday on CBS. On Saturday, the Baltimore-Pittsburgh game averaged 28.0 million on NBC and the Arizona-Carolina game 21.7 million on ESPN.