NFL on Christmas: Greedy NBA Grinches or is there more to it?

As in millions more viewers due to outsized holiday out of home viewing...

The stories about a greedy NFL that enjoys being grinches and stealing NBA’s Christmas are fun, and also kind of undeniably true! 

But I think there’s more to the NFL’s further push into Christmas that has Brian Rolapp and team singing a variation of the old Christmas standard: (A lot of) you’ll be out of home for Christmas, Nielsen now counts more of you…

Given the changes in the television viewing landscape, even without the Nielsen measurement changes in 2020 to include (a lot more*) out-of-home (OOH) viewing, the NFL would’ve eventually planted the flag on Christmas in any year where Christmas falls on a Sunday, Monday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday, regardless.  

But besides being greedy and grinchy, jumping through the extra scheduling hoops to accommodate a Wednesday Christmas (and undoubtedly Tuesday, though that won’t happen until 2029) might just be smart.  

The measurement change to include OOH pretty much demands there at least be a Christmas game on a broadcast network at 4:30PM ET.

Below is a chart of Christmas Day games that aired on a broadcast network in the past ten years. There were no NFL games on Christmas in 2014 & 2015 (a Thursday and  Friday) or 2018 (a Tuesday).  

I didn’t include any Christmas Day games that were exclusive to cable, because they’re not that useful  for the“should they or shouldn’t they” discussion. 

But as far as Christmas games on broadcast networks, especially a 4:30P ET game, I definitely think they should. Even on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

In just the past 3 seasons the NFL has aired five games on Christmas that exceeded 25 million viewers, and two of them had more than 29 million viewers. In 2023 there were only 30 telecasts that averaged more than 25 million viewers. Sure, all but one of them (the aggregate network rollup of the State of the Union address) were already NFL games. But there just aren’t that many opportunities to do it, so if you get even a single extra opportunity…

Many are interested in how the NFL will schedule it and player safety concerns over more short turnaround games. Assuming the Wednesday game is the first game of that week’s slate of NFL game (usually Thursday is the first game of the week), the turn around from games played the previous Saturday is the same as Sunday to Thursday.

Tuesday is a serious challenge if it’s the week’s first game, but think the scheduling can be pulled off pretty easily if it’s the last game of the week.

I really don’t think the NFL should bother with extra games on short turnaround for any cable or streaming exclusives, though particularly with streaming, I’m sure they don’t care what I think!

But even on a Tuesday, I think it’s worth figuring out a 4:30P ET game on a broadcast network.

*Prior to 2020, Nielsen captured short-term visitors” — visitors to Nielsen panelists households, so long as the panelist manually keyed the information in (the new measurement since 2020 also automatically captures panelists out-of-home viewing via audio detection on portable people meters. Prior to 2020, Nielsen subscribers could break out the short-term visitors separately (for the 2016 Chiefs/Broncos game they represented 2.189 million out of 21.414 million, and for the 2017 Steelers/Texans game, 1.948 million ou of 14.973 million).

Since the measurement change in 2020, those short-term visitors were moved to out-of-home viewers, and Nielsen no longer offers its subscribers the ability to separate out the short-term visitors (visitors to Nielsen panelist’s households) from out-of-home viewing from Nielsen panelists who are visiting other people’s homes or bars, hotels, etc where the measurement is automatic anywhere audio can be detected.