Christmas Day is proving its mettle as a sports viewership holiday, and the NFL is cashing in.
Just hours after the NBA announced massive year-over-year viewership gains for its Christmas Day slate, the NFL proved that it can attract massive audiences even on nontraditional platforms.
Per release, Netflix’s NFL doubleheader on Christmas Day featuring the Kansas City Chiefs against the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens playing the Houston Texans were the most-streamed NFL games on-record. The 1:00 p.m. ET Chiefs-Steelers matchup averaged 24.1 million viewers according to Nielsen’s fast national measurements, while the 4:30 p.m. ET Ravens-Texans game drew 24.3 million viewers.
Similar to viewership trends for the Super Bowl where tune-in is highest during the halftime show, Netflix’s Christmas Day games peaked at 27 million viewers during Beyoncé’s halftime performance in the late afternoon game.
Perhaps most importantly for the league, Wednesday’s doubleheader did not see a significant decline versus last year’s three Christmas Day games that aired on broadcast television. The tripleheader in 2023 — where Fox, CBS, and ABC aired one game a piece — averaged 28.68 million viewers compared to 24.2 million viewers this year. That is down 16% year-over-year, but compares favorably to the NFL’s other tentpole streaming exclusives.
Last season’s Peacock-exclusive Wild Card game between the Miami Dolphins and Chiefs, for instance, averaged just 22.86 million viewers compared to an average of 31.74 million viewers for the other five Wild Card round games that same weekend. The fact that Netflix’s regular season doubleheader drew more viewers than a playoff game last season is not only a testament to the streamer’s broad subscriber base, but also the widespread adoption of streaming as a means to view live events in the United States.
Included in the press release, the NFL and Netflix mention that the games were seen by an unduplicated audience of nearly 65 million viewers in the United States. Those figures generally aren’t reported on for broadcast television, but it displays that Netflix — the undisputed leader in streaming — has reach comparable to that of a broadcast network in 2024. That likely can’t be said about more niche streaming services like Apple TV+ or Peacock.
With two more years left on its Christmas Day NFL deal, it’s likely that audiences for the event only continue to grow as people become accustomed to flipping on Netflix for the holiday games.
[NFL PR]
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.