Christmas Day has long been a basketball-themed holiday in the sports world. The NBA’s Christmas Day tradition stretches back to 1947, the inaugural season of the Association.
However, the NFL has gone from playing on Christmas in years when it falls on a weekend to creating a schedule that ensures football will be on the holiday every year. Now the numbers show that Christmas might have joined Thanksgiving as a football-first holiday.
The NFL Takes Over Christmas Day
While the NFL on Christmas tradition is far younger than the NBA’s, the numbers don’t lie about football’s popularity.
Who owns Christmas now?
— Pro Football Network (@PFN365) December 25, 2024
The NFL went big for this year’s holiday. The two games featured four playoff teams from 2023 in the Kansas City Chiefs, Pittsburgh Steelers, Baltimore Ravens, and Houston Texans. In addition, the Ravens-Texans game featured a rare regular-season halftime show, with Beyoncé putting on a concert that earned widespread attention and acclaim.
The league’s efforts paid off. Netflix has determined that over one-third of its subscribers tuned into either the Chiefs-Steelers game or the Ravens-Texans game on Wednesday.
There were viewers from over 200 countries who watched the doubleheader.
Prior to the event, Netflix reportedly expected roughly 35 million viewers, but it sounds like the viewership even beat their expectations.
“Last year, we decided to take a big bet on live — tapping into massive fandoms across comedy, reality TV, sports, and more,” said Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s chief content officer before the games. “There are no live annual events, sports or otherwise, that compare with the audiences NFL football attracts. We’re so excited that the NFL’s Christmas Day games will be only on Netflix.”
Google Trends indicated that the NFL far outweighed the NBA in terms of search interest, even as high-profile teams such as the New York Knicks, Boston Celtics, and Dallas Mavericks played in head-to-head windows against the NFL.
— Pro Football Network (@PFN365) December 26, 2024
Football has been king for quite some time in the United States, with the NFL specifically capturing viewers everywhere. Christmas Day was once for basketball, but every day is for football these days.