The NFL’s Relentless Expansion of the Sports calendar
(Programming Note: We’ll be taking tomorrow adn Thursday off from posting for christmas – don’t worry, the models and stats will still update – so here’s wishing you and yours a happy and safe holiday! 🎄❤️)
Like many of you reading this, I suspect, I grew up with a pretty clear idea of which sports “owned” which parts of the calendar.
College football had New year’s Day covered, with perhaps a little room carved out for hockey and the Winter Classic. Memorial Day weekend was all about auto racing. The Fourth of july belonged to baseball, as did Mother’s Day and Father’s Day (break out the pink bats and blue accoutrements) and Labor Day, too – when the final-month playoff push truly sets in. Thanksgiving was all about watching NFL games while eating turkey.
but over the last couple of decades, the NFL has been engaged in a slow, steady, and remarkably successful campaign to colonize the entire sports calendar. And, frankly, it’s working.
NFL Now Owns Christmas Day
The NFL crashed the holiday party-and it’s staying. It all started with the vikings and Saints in 2020, during the COVID season. That game was a hit, pulling in over 20 million viewers across FOX and NFL Network. Ratings proved it was a good move. The league quickly expanded to two games in 2021, then three in 2022.
Those games didn’t just do well-they broke records. Packers-Browns in 2021 brought in 28.59 million viewers, making it the most-watched Christmas Day sporting event in two decades. It was a massive success.Then came 2023, when Chiefs-Raiders shattered that record with 29.2 million viewers. Even with a slight dip after moving some games to streaming last year, Chiefs-Steelers and Ravens-Texans still averaged 24.2 million viewers.
The NBA? It hasn’t been close. As the NFL started playing on Christmas five years ago, the NBA’s viewership has been less than 20 percent of the NFL’s. No single NBA game has topped 7.76 million viewers-that’s what LeBron James’ Lakers versus Steph Curry’s Warriors drew last year. The NBA saw a jump in ratings, but it still couldn’t compete. After the game, James saeid, “I love the NFL, but Christmas is our day.” But the numbers say otherwise.
As Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch pointed out on X, the NFL is winning Christmas, and it isn’t even close.