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As the NFL wrapped its quarterly users ‘ meetings down in Orlando earlier this year, Roger Goodell’s tailor began letting out the neck of the judge’s Grinch costume. The sports monolith’s owner announced on Tuesday that the league would present a Christmas Day doubleheader, spoiling the festivities for Hoopsville ® residents for the fifth year in a row.
Goodell’s statement flew in the face of the NFL’s historic planning scheme, which had established Wednesday as a no- travel zone for football. The next time the league prepared for a sport that aired smackdab in the middle of the week was in the year of the plague, when a Ravens and Steelers had to switch their midnight Thanksgiving gameup from NBC to the dying of the week. The next day the NFL opened a store on Hump Day was in 2012, when the Cowboys and Giants voted to support President Barack Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention by holding a meeting the day before the event.

The NFL game was played on Wednesday since 1948. Thus, the NFL’s anti-Weekly stance appeared to be about as unchanging as the weight that prevents the authorities ‘ charges flags from floating absurdly around in the breeze despite having extended its tendrils almost every other day of the week.
The NBA was n’t going to pass up on another chance to throw its weight around over the ho-ho-holi holiday, even though the organization had anticipated having the run of the place this year because this year marks the 77th season of the Yuletide extravaganza. The first three-fer of the year put up playoff-grade TV scores, with the first Chiefs-Raiders upset averaged 29.5 million people on CBS ( fine for the No. 14 spot on the list of major 100 U. S. broadcast ), while the large- flying Giants- Birds showdown scared up another 29 million Fox people. Rounding off the never- so- silent evening, the Ravens- Niners game averaged 27.6 million viewers, per Nielsen, deliveries for the three broadcasts were off 30 % versus the year- ago Christmas slate.
In the face of this sport assault, the NBA averaged 2.85 million viewers with its five- game stone, which marked the team’s least- watched Christmas roster on record.
No network executive on the planet would not trade a day of arguing eggnog and pulling tinsel out of the dog’s butt for a chance at those kinds of numbers, even if it means that players on four NFL teams will have to play three games in 11 days. So far, the NFL Players Association has n’t made a peep about the late- season short- time situation, although to paraphrase Rick James, ratings are a hell of a drug.
As much as it’s fun to ascribe malice to the actions of an all- powerful entity, Goodell’s decision to plunder this rare midweek Christmas—why, he even took the roast beast! —had little to do with a scheme to dim the spotlight on the NBA’s long-standing tradition. While the NFL’s default setting is to steal thunder, the Xmas excess is all about taking full advantage of the new-ish method of measuring TV audiences.

The NFL’s holiday ratings have been nuttier than that weird Trotsky-looking kid your niece smuggled into Thanksgiving dinner since Nielsen began using out-of-home data with its national TV measurement. ( On the bright side: At least you’re not the one footing the bill for four years at Oberlin. ) Everyone arrives at gramma’s, and once the feast has been attended to, all eyes are on the RCA in the family room because American holidays are structured in the manner of the old over the river and through the woods trope. The set may be so old that a VCR is integrated into it, but the result is that some eye-catching holiday deliveries have been produced as a result of the bonus eyeballs that have been tallied by Nielsen. Last year’s Thanksgiving Day broadcast on CBS ( Commanders- Cowboys ) served up 41.8 million viewers, with out- of- home deliveries accounting for 41 % ( or 17.3 million ) of those fans. In 2022, Fox set a record with 42.1 million viewers, as 39 % of its Giants- Cowboys audience took in the action at someone else’s home. The family gathers around a bird carcass on Thanksgiving Day, repairs the parlor, and then plays the NFL game over the holidays.
It would be foolish of the NFL to waste the chance to tap into that reservoir of souls, especially now that the networks are being credited with all those bonus impressions, as large gatherings clearly cause tens of millions of people to star at the TV. And of course, the rights holder wo n’t be vocal about their feelings about taking a vacation, not when the escalators in the TV contracts are kicking in every year. On Thanksgiving 2023, CBS, Fox and NBC together booked just shy of a quarter- billion- dollars of in- game ad revenue ($ 246.3 million ), which buys an awful lot of pie. No one in their right mind would decline that kind of loot, and the holiday season is beginning to add up to the already-earnings from the December 25 tripleheader, which generated nearly$ 150 million in ad spend last year.
And hoo boy, the holiday deliveries are only going to get bigger. As Sportico broke back in January, Nielsen is about to expand its out- of- home measurement to include 100 % of U. S. TV markets. Every sport on the tube is expected to experience a ratings increase starting in 2025, though the impact wo n’t be known until after Super Bowl LIX airs on Fox in February. No matter what day of the week the holiday arrives in any given year, the NFL now has even less incentive to back away from the holiday.
Showing up in Adam Silver’s organization is just the cherry on top of a fruitcake that already weighs more than an offensive tackle for the NFL. It might be better to imagine the NFL as an indifferent God who pares His fingernails while space garbage kills all the dinosaurs, rather than interpreting the league’s Wednesday switcheroo as an act of malice. The NFL does n’t answer prayers, much like the creator, who could n’t bear witness to the transformation of his enormous lizard children into motor oil. Or emails, for that matter.
As Michael Corleone assures his hot- tempered brother in that other great Christmas movie:” It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business”. Now that the NFL has put a round through Moe Greene’s Foster Grants, Dec. 25 is in its pocket now. As for the NBA, it has no intention of quitting the field and, say, relocating its quintuple- header to Boxing Day, but there’s no getting around the fact that the league’s holiday tradition has been diminished.