When the NFL began planning its schedule for the 2024 regular season, the team responsible for the schedule did not expect a game on Christmas Day.
Of course, six teams faced each other on Christmas Tuesday last season. The San Francisco 49ers hosted the Baltimore Ravens in a high-stakes showdown between teams heading for the conference championship on the night of December 25, a ratings bonanza.
But playing on Wednesday?
“Last year at this time we weren’t really thinking about Christmas Wednesday as we were looking at the 2024 schedule,” NFL Vice President of Broadcast Planning Mike North said. “But when you saw the viewing figures that you saw at Christmas for last year’s tripleheader and the year before that, and I think it’s four out of the last five years that we’ve played at Christmas, the fans have spoken.
“They want the games there and our broadcast partners want the games there.”
So the NFL didn’t just violate player health and safety rules to schedule a cable game — the league went a step further, seeing slots as a chance to broaden its digital and global presence.
For the first time in history, Netflix will broadcast live sports games.
“It’s a global opportunity for us [with] one of the largest video platforms in the world,” NFL Executive Vice President Hans Schroeder said of Netflix. “So we’re really excited about adding a partner, adding continued broad reach, not just here in the United States, but also globally, in a way that’s consistent with our tradition of continuing to innovate and evolve.
“If we’re building popularity in football, we’re building interest in football, we’re building audience – that benefits all of our partners over time.”
In an effort to maximize appeal, the NFL gave the streaming service four teams that qualified for the playoffs last season, including the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs.
The Chiefs will kick off at the Pittsburgh Steelers at 1pm ET on Netflix, followed by a 4:30pm ET matchup of the Baltimore Ravens against the Houston Texans. The early stages of the game intentionally influence foreign audiences.
Each of the teams will play on the Saturday before Wednesday’s game to provide a five-day gap between games, similar to teams following a Sunday game with “Thursday Night Football.”
“That Sunday-Saturday-Wednesday sequence would be challenging [and] we had to pick the right four teams,” North said. “Four teams that played each other, all would be relevant for the playoffs, all healthy to maintain four national windows.”
Broadcast partners seized the opportunity.
“There was a lot of interest,” North said. “It was a competitive offer.”
Why the Netflix partnership aligns with the NFL’s strategic goals
Ultimately, Netflix’s offer offered the NFL two key factors beyond the financial benefit.
First, the NFL continued to tiptoe away from its cable television model. The league already aired a playoff game exclusively on NBC’s Peacock streaming service in January, a paid home that nevertheless drew a larger audience than the previous year’s broadcast of the same timed wildcard game, the league said.
Second, the NFL is increasingly looking to increase its presence outside the United States. Last December, team owners approved increasing the international fixture list from four games (plus the Jacksonville Jaguars’ annual visit to Wembley Stadium in the London area) to eight games. The league will play its first game in South America when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers meet in Week 1 on September 6.
This contest, like the ones at Christmas, speaks to the NFL’s growing growth: The Eagles and Packers’ season openers will be played on Friday, the league’s first Friday Week 1 game since 1970. It will be broadcast exclusively on Peacock .
The start of the Jets’ season is packed with prime time. NFL crossing fingers that Aaron Rodgers stays healthy.
“The Jets owe us one,” said NFL vice president of broadcast planning Mike North. Last year, “we were all on the Jets. And for that guy to last four plays was disheartening for a lot of us.” pic.twitter.com/kEeEpNx2ze
-Jori Epstein (@JoriEpstein) May 16, 2024
Approximately 85% of NFL games will continue to be broadcast on free, over-the-air television, league executives emphasized on the conference call amid accessibility concerns. All NFL games will continue to be televised in each team’s home market, NFL Executive Vice President Jeff Miller said.
But at a national level, fans should increasingly expect the need for a streaming service for some big national games. Netflix’s deal with the NFL includes a broadcast of the 2025 Christmas game on Thursday and the 2026 Christmas game on Friday. The NFL will give its other Christmas Thursday game next year to Amazon Prime, which already streams more than 15 games a year on its Thursday night schedule.
“We know that transmission is extremely important,” Schroeder said. “We know that the reach it provides is very important, which is why we are so committed. But we also see some of these new and emerging platforms. Netflix is far from being new and emerging, but on the digital side it is already able to offer very broad audiences and on a large scale.
“I think we’re really excited about what they’re going to deliver for Christmas.”
