The NFL is embarking on a new Christmas Day tradition this year. Christmas Day games have traditionally been held throughout the NFL, but only on special occasions.
Things will change on Wednesday, as the league will play a midweek Christmas Day game for the first time. The NFL will also debut its newest broadcast partner during the Christmas Day game, as the league will stream games on Netflix.
This will be the first NFL game for Netflix, which has focused on live sports over the past year. The streaming service aired the Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul exhibition fight in October, as well as two network-produced events: golf’s Netflix Cup and tennis’ Netflix Slam. Netflix also acquired rights to WWE Monday Night Raw (starting in January) and the 2027 and 2031 FIFA Women’s World Cups.
The NFL signed a $150 million deal from Netflix to broadcast Christmas games this year. Netflix and the NFL also reached an agreement to broadcast a Christmas game every three seasons. Under the terms of its deal with Netflix, the NFL will play two games on Christmas Day this season and “at least” one game on Christmas Day in 2025 and 2026 (Christmas Day was a Thursday in 2025 and a Christmas Day game in 2026). falls on Friday). How will the league handle Christmas Day games, which are usually played on Wednesday, a mid-week holiday on the NFL calendar?
This is where Saturday’s game of Week 16 began. All four teams playing on Christmas Day (Kansas City Chiefs, Pittsburgh Steelers, Houston Texans, and Baltimore Ravens) will play on Saturday, and these teams will play from Sunday afternoon games to Thursday night games, i.e. It was decided that the same development would take place over three days. between games.
Thus, the NFL was spared from having to play a Christmas Day game on Wednesday. Three days of rest had to be provided for these teams to play midweek. In years past, Christmas Day games were held when the holiday fell on a Saturday, Sunday, or Monday (days the league typically plays in December). There were special edition games held on Fridays in 2009 and 2020, but they were part of the “Thursday Night Football” package.
The league has played each of the past five years on Christmas Day. Based on the deal with Netflix, this will become an annual tradition in the NFL for the next few seasons. Amazon Prime Video also plans to air games on Christmas Day next year as part of its “Thursday Night Football” package, so Christmas games aren’t going away.
The NFL is slowly starting the tradition of playing games on Christmas Day, and given the ratings (more than 28 million people watched the Christmas game last year) and funding ($150 million this year from Netflix), it seems unlikely that the league will soon It will never stop.
The Christmas games continue.
