Who owns prime time? The NFL books audiences, not records

From 2022 through the 2026 schedule as it stood on Oct. 9, the Dallas Cowboys had 22 games on Sunday or Monday night, more than any other team and twice the league median of 11, while the Cleveland Browns had three and none of them on a Sunday.

We posted the chart to r/dataisbeautiful, where it drew more than 100 comments arguing over why some teams get the national spotlight and others don’t, so we went back to the game-by-game data to check the most common claims.

Dallas draws viewers whether or not it wins

The most common objection was that a team without a Super Bowl appearance in 30 years still tops the list. That fits how these windows are sold, since networks pay for the audience they expect, and Dallas appeared on Sunday or Monday night at least four times in each of the five seasons, while the average team appeared 2.3 times a season.

Seattle, which several readers noted had just won the Super Bowl, has 10 Sunday and Monday night games across the same span, fewer than half of Dallas’s total, although its three on the 2026 schedule are the most it has had in any season since 2022.

The Chargers’ total is front-loaded

The Chargers rank third with 18 games, seven more than the Rams in the same market, but their count has dropped every season, from five in 2022 to four, four, three and now two on the 2026 schedule. The Rams have moved the other way, and counting every standalone national window, including Thursday and holiday games, they have seven on the 2026 schedule, more than in any of the previous four seasons.

Several readers suspected the Chargers’ total was padded by division games against Kansas City, but only 2 of their 18 Sunday and Monday night games came against the Chiefs. The 18 were spread across 15 different opponents, and the most frequent was Baltimore, with three.

Winning shows up a season or two later

Results do move the schedule, though slowly, because the league sets most of the slate before a season starts. Detroit had one Sunday or Monday night game in 2022 and one in 2023, then five in 2024 after its run to the NFC Championship Game, and Houston went from none in 2022 and 2023 to three in each of the next two seasons.

The Jets show how quickly the league pulls back when a bet doesn’t pay off. They had no Sunday or Monday night games in 2022, four in 2023 and three in 2024 after trading for Aaron Rodgers, then one in 2025 and none so far in 2026.

Counting every national window reshuffles the middle of the list

The most frequent request was to include Thursday night, and the audience figures support it. Thursday Night Football averaged 15.3 million viewers in the 2025 regular season, close to Monday Night Football’s 15.8 million, while Sunday Night Football averaged 23.5 million.

The second chart counts every game with no other game in its time slot, which adds Thursday nights, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas, Saturday standalones and international morning games. Dallas and Kansas City tie for the lead at 35 games each. Pittsburgh and Green Bay gain the most from the wider count, 16 games each, and Baltimore doubles from 15 to 30, tied for fifth, mostly on seven Thursday and six Saturday or international games. Jacksonville’s 18 include nine international games, and the bottom of the list barely changes, with Arizona last at eight and Cleveland at 10.

Who has nothing on the 2026 schedule yet

New Orleans has had no Sunday night games in any of the five seasons, and all six of its appearances in these windows came on Monday, while Cleveland has no Sunday nights either. Six teams have no Sunday or Monday night games on the 2026 schedule so far: the Raiders, Jets, Dolphins, Titans, Cardinals and Browns.

That list can still shrink, because games from Week 5 through Week 17 can be flexed into Sunday night, and a reader in the Browns thread pointed out that a winning Cleveland team would be an obvious candidate. We will update both charts when the league sets its 2026 Saturday and Week 18 games.

How we counted: the first chart includes every regular-season game kicking off Sunday at 8 p.m. ET or later, or Monday at 7 p.m. ET or later, including flexed games and the 2023-25 Monday doubleheaders. The second includes every game with no other game in its time slot, with each holiday game counted once under Holiday. Sunday 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. regional games and the playoffs are excluded, and 2026 reflects the schedule as of Oct. 9, 2026. Data comes from Pro-Football-Reference for 2022-25 results and from FBSchedules and Netflix for the 2026 schedule, with viewership figures from NBC Sports and Sports Media Watch. Charts by The News in Data, first posted on r/dataisbeautiful.