If you were a fan of America’s Team 20 years ago and have kids, you’re raising Cowboys fans.” She grew up north of Dayton and went to Ohio State, but she was a Cowboys fan before Ezekiel Elliott got there. “My fiance is a Cowboys fan and she never lived in Dallas. “It’s amazing how many Cowboys fans are here in this southwest corner of Kentucky,” said Dan Wann, a sports psychologist at Murray State whose research program centers on the psychology of sport fandom, and in particular the causes and consequences of sport team identification. Still, between Jones’ masterful Barnum-esque persona and the Cowboys being just good enough often enough, fans have continued to hop on Jerry’s party bus. Yet for the better part of 20 years, the on-field product had mostly drifted into mediocrity with pockets of Tony Romo-fueled ascension that typically ended in spectacular gut-punch failure. Sunday night will mark the Cowboys’ NFL-high 38th appearance on NBC Sunday Night Football. The Week 11 game at winless Cleveland, a noon kickoff, easily rated the highest for the early doubleheader window this season. Week 10’s game at Pittsburgh drew a 17.8 overnight rating, which was the highest overnight of the season, topping the Week 6 Cowboys game against the Packers. Last Sunday night’s game against the division rival New York Giants attracted 26.5 million viewers, according to NBC Sports, making it the most-watched Week 14 prime-time game in 27 years.ĭallas’ Thanksgiving Day matchup against Washington drew a whopping 35.1 million viewers, the most-watched regular-season game in FOX Sports history, and the most-watched regular-season game since Dallas and Kansas City drew 35.7 million on Thanksgiving Day in 1995. Exhilarating wins, crushing defeats, larger than life personalities and everything in between. “Jerry Jones has done a masterful job keeping them relevant, regardless of the record. Like a great made-for-TV drama, you never know where the twists and turns may come, only that you know they will,” said Fred Gaudelli, executive producer of NBC Sunday Night Football and Thursday Night Football. “One of the things you can always count on is there is always something swirling around them and they are never dull.