The eyes have it: Fans stay up late to watch the Cowboys

Expectations, and eyeballs, are way up for the Dallas Cowboys this season and it doesn’t matter when or who they are playing.

For Thursday's Cowboys vs. San Diego preseason game with a 9 p.m. start, KTVT/Ch. 11 reports an overall rating of 13.9 with almost 362,000 viewers. The rating for the first preseason game last year, also at San Diego, was 11.3.

That’s a rating increase of 23 percent.

Among males age 25 to 54, the rating was 11.7 and 171,000 viewers (versus an 8.8 rating last year). Among all 25- to 54-year-olds, the game had a 9.5 rating and almost 282,000 viewers (versus a 6.8 rating last year).

Even though only 10 starters played briefly in the 17-7 loss, it didn’t matter to Cowboys fans.

No Tony Romo. No Dez Bryant. No Jason Witten.

No problem. The fans watched anyway.

Even routine scrimmages are doing well. Sunday’s Blue and White scrimmage in Oxnard, Calif., posted a 1.8 rating (46,900 viewers) on KTXA/Channel 21.

The Cowboys’ next preseason game is at San Francisco on Aug. 23 with a 7 p.m. kickoff.

This story was originally published August 14, 2015 at 2:33 PM with the headline "The eyes have it: Fans stay up late to watch the Cowboys."