Don’t lose your remote control in crumpled wrapping paper or empty boxes on Christmas Day. Because if you want to watch two major NFL games, you’ll have to call up a new channel. Netflix is jumping headlong into the live streaming sports business, broadcasting two NFL games on Christmas Day.
The NFL gifted Netflix with two playoff games: Kansas City vs. Pittsburgh at 1 p.m. ET and Baltimore vs. Houston at 4:30 p.m. ET. A large number of analysts and commentators will be attending these two spectacular matches. Because too much is never enough at Christmas, the second game features Beyoncé’s halftime performance. Anything worth doing is worth doing too much.
The Christmas NFL Duo is Netflix’s biggest livestreaming effort to date, and the streaming service’s biggest bet since opting to stream via DVD-by-mail. There are serious issues here for everyone involved.
NFL: Sorry Santa, Christmas is now owned by the Shield.
The NFL has scheduled games on Christmas Day for the past five years, but this year Christmas falls on a Wednesday, creating a bit of a logistical challenge. The history of NFL games being played on Wednesdays is very short due to the limited travel time from the preceding and following Sundays. There was the Steelers-Ravens game during the coronavirus pandemic — let’s not talk about that again — and the move to avoid President Barack Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2012. There was also the season kickoff between the Cowboys and the Giants. But first, we have to travel back to 1948 for Wednesday’s game.
The NFL originally planned to suspend Christmas broadcasts in 2024 because it didn’t want any teams to have to further shorten the second half of the season. But then the league looked at the ratings for last year’s Christmas games, and the average audience for the three games was 28.68 million, with the highest rating being 29.48 for the Raiders vs. Chiefs. And at the end of the day, Wednesday football was determined to be viable.
The NFL, bending even the calendar with its indomitable will and hunger, scheduled four teams to play Saturday games in Week 16 on Christmas Day, giving them the same amount of time off as switching from Sunday to Thursday. Combine that with the $150 million provided by Netflix to broadcast the two games, and we’ve got here.
Still, the shortened period meant the team played three games in 11 days, and Patrick Mahomes admitted it “didn’t feel good.” But the game goes on and we hope everyone is unharmed at the end of Christmas.
For the NFL, Netflix’s move has nothing but benefits. Netflix has 282.3 million subscribers in 190 countries. In theory, anyone could watch this game as part of their regular subscription. This is an attractive proposition for a league that is always looking at its next championship.
In the worst-case scenario, the league would continue with its existing partners. Best-case scenario: There’s a new streaming revenue stream in town for the league. And Beyoncé’s halftime extravaganza around 6 p.m. ET will have many non-football fans flocking to the screens for the show, potentially turning Christmas Day into a second Super Bowl Sunday. be. As always, it’s a win-win for the NFL.
Netflix: Is this broadcast suitable for everyone?
The streaming service, which is committed to original content and A-list movie stars, is walking a much higher tightrope with its NFL commitments. First and foremost, there’s the question of whether anyone will be able to watch the fight, given the technical glitch that marred the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson “fight” that Netflix aired last month. As noted by the Associated Press, the game drew up to 65 million concurrent streamers, and the highest number of viewers ever streamed for an NFL game was last year’s Dolphins vs. Chiefs game on Peacock. The wild card playoff game drew 23 million viewers.
While Netflix claims to be prepared for an onslaught of NFL fans and, later in the broadcast, Beyoncé fans, there’s certainly some nerves around Netflix headquarters at the moment.
On a broader scale, the NFL game represents a major step forward in Netflix’s global entertainment ambitions. Netflix is fully committed to the production and will bring in more than 20 names from the world of sports and entertainment to provide pre-game, in-game and post-game commentary.
The appeal of the NFL to Netflix is clear. Live sports are the last remaining real-time programs. No one records a match and watches it days or weeks later like most of us do for TV series. The NFL has distanced itself from its more active days in 2020 and 2021, becoming one of the few integrated forms of entertainment still available in a polarized America. Netflix plans to jump on that trend and capitalize on it.
Netflix has aired one-off live events in the past, including golf and tennis matches and Paul and Tyson. Christmas Day is the first day intended for repeat business for streamers. Netflix may stream Christmas Day matches in the next few years, and is set to begin airing WWE’s Monday Night Raw in January. Further down the line, Netflix will be broadcasting the Women’s World Cup, which is a surprising broadcast coup and shows that Amazon and Apple aren’t the only streaming-only services.
Fans: Another new way to watch sports
It’s been a few years since a major shift in sports streaming began. So now it doesn’t take much of a mental adjustment to consider watching NFL games on a streaming-only platform. Sure, you’ll have to hunt down that elusive remote to get to the new service, but it’s not all that different from finding a Prime Video game on a Thursday night or finding Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. The NFL has been training fans for years to search streaming services for games in preparation for just such a moment.
However, it’s worth remembering that not everyone has a smart TV with Netflix already enabled. More to the point, not everyone has Netflix. While this is obviously the streamer’s goal to get more subscribers from this whole endeavor, it’s also a big deal for fans, like scrambling to find a credit card to get Netflix up and running on Christmas Day, or having kids or kids. It could mean making frantic phone calls to your grandchildren. The evaluation of this effort will be an interesting barometer of how far fans are willing to pursue and pay for something that was once free and easy.
Team: Impact on playoffs for both games
Oh, wait a minute. I want to talk about the actual game. I almost forgot. Kansas City is in the early stages, and a win would earn them the No. 1 overall seed, an opening-round bye, and home-field advantage for the entire playoffs. That’s enough motivation to get through the fatigue of three games in 11 days. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh needs to stay ahead of Baltimore in both of its remaining games to keep its hopes of winning the AFC North alive. Both currently have 10 wins and 5 losses.
In the second half, Houston has already clinched a playoff berth, but could move even higher if the two AFC North teams struggle in their final two games. Baltimore’s road to an AFC North title begins with a win on Christmas Day. If both teams in the AFC North are 2-0 (or 0-2) in their last two games, Pittsburgh will win the tiebreaker, but if they are 1-1, things get more complicated. Baltimore has to go undefeated and hope Pittsburgh gets one loss to have the best chance possible.
NBA: kicked out of the championship
If you think of the NBA as Whoville, which happily broadcasts Christmas games for years, and the NFL as the Grinch stealing Christmas out from under the Whos, well…that’s about right. The NFL’s Christmas Day assault could not have come at a worse time for the NBA, which is at the end of the LeBron, Steph and KD era and at the beginning of a new and uncertain era. Concerns about the league’s ratings may or may not be overblown, but the NFL’s popularity is dwarfing the NBA and will suck up many of the casual viewers who were once the NBA’s own holiday. There is no objection to that.
This man has just completed a worldwide journey. It makes sense to kick off your boots, put your feet up, grab a glass of eggnog and watch some soccer. Who will Santa support? Your favorite team, of course.
