FOX made surprising schedule request regarding Cowboys games

The Dallas Cowboys are frequently featured in FOX’s national window on Sundays, but that will not be the case quite as often in 2025. That is because, surprisingly, FOX asked for it.

FOX analytics head Mike Mulvihill admitted FOX changed its calculus for the 2025 season and tried to diversify its schedule for 4:25 P.M. ET games. The network explicitly asked for more AFC games and other top NFC teams at the expense of the Cowboys.

“Of our 4:25 p.m. games, only three of them are Cowboys games,” Mulvihill told Richard Deitsch of The Athletic. “In other years, we’ve gone looking for five or six Dallas games at 4:25. What we wanted for this year was more AFC, more Philly, but also more Detroit and a little more Washington to try to capitalize on the Jayden Daniels story.

“I think we have a better mix of teams than we’ve had in the past. Sometimes we’ve heard exasperation from fans that the FOX 4:25 game is always the Cowboys. It’s still gonna be the Cowboys sometimes this year, but you’ll see a little bit more variety in terms of top teams in our 4:25 window.”

The Cowboys only got the coveted 4:25 game three times on FOX and once on CBS this season. Three of those four games are against 2024 playoff teams in the Commanders, Eagles, and Broncos, with the other coming against the Chicago Bears.

The Cowboys are coming off a 7-10 season, and some of those Cowboys games FOX had have not been quite as enticing as the network had hoped when the schedule came out. This is probably a reaction to that, at least in part. The Cowboys may be a big ratings draw, but they simply are not among the class of the NFC at this time.

There are plenty of other places where the Cowboys will land on national TV in 2025, sometimes to the disappointment of fans. Those who focus on that Sunday afternoon window might be pleased to see a bit more variety in that slot.