Commentary

Do Netflix's Xmas NFL Games - On A Wednesday - Tell Us Anything?

by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, December 31, 2024

Drilling down into the results of the two high-profile Netflix Christmas Day NFL games showed some promising growth for the league for the big streaming platform -- and perhaps a bit more that the games were played on a Wednesday.

Both its games averaged 24.2 million viewers -- a healthy holiday-day broadcast-like viewing result.

And Netflix passed the live sports test -- with minor interruptions, according to some complaints on social media.

The games also pulled in viewers who are slightly younger.

TV/media analytics company Samba TV says Gen Z viewers age 20-24 slightly over-indexed on both games -- 3% more for the Chiefs/Steelers contest and 1% for the Ravens/Texans.

By comparison, Christmas Day games on three networks a year ago -- Fox, ABC and CBS/Nickelodeon -- “under indexed” for those same viewers.

But what may have been lost in much of this was an interesting perspective on playing games on a Wednesday -- which irked some players who were concerned about rest. Increasingly, these non-traditional NFL playing days have become an issue.

For Super Bowl Champions the Kansas City Chiefs -- who played on Christmas Day this year -- it amounts to a stretch, playing six games in 31 days.

The Chiefs became the first team to play on every day of the week -- except Tuesday -- in the same season.

NFL teams have been gradually becoming accustomed to new scheduling over the years.

Traditional Sunday games have morphed into additional Saturday games. And then came Thursday Thanksgiving games, and then “Monday Night Football.” And more recently, there is "Thursday Night Football.”

At the same time, there are more overseas games, where travel and rest day considerations have been factored in.

Now NFL games have been played on different days of the week in the past. The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic disruption had a game on a Tuesday at one point. And Christmas Day fell on a Monday a year ago.

And now, perhaps for some, could the NFL be mulling another expansion: Wednesdays or even Tuesdays? Probably not in the near future.

But consider the NFL serious in its desire to move to 18 regular-season games perhaps by the 2026 season.

For sure, the Netflix deal was built on the big off-work day that Christmas brings -- not the day of the week.

But as the major U.S. sports TV league -- with incredible sports TV leverage -- the NFL continues to expand. How does that manifest itself?

analytics, football, ratings, streaming, television

2 comments about "Do Netflix's Xmas NFL Games - On A Wednesday - Tell Us Anything?".

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Dan C. from MS Entertainment, December 31, 2024 at 11:32 a.m.
All it illustrates is that the NFL is about making more $$$. Complaints from long-time fans about having to now subscribe to multiple services they don't want are mounting. It used to be easy to watch live sports - but the leagues are all after $$$ and broadcast rights are given to the highest bidder even though the average fan complains that it's getting more and more difficult to watch every game.

Perhaps the NFL cares about global expansion and doesn't care that it's alienating it's U.S. audience.

As to this comment - "And Netflix passed the live sports test -- with minor interruptions, according to some complaints on social media."

"Minor interruptions?" Netflix pixelmation was trnding for hours on X and multiple social platforms with customers (including myself) complaining how terrible the pre-game show was and in my household, we turned the game off by the second quarter because the pixelation was so bad. Judging by the volume of complaints across social media platforms, we were not alone.
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Ben B from Retired, December 31, 2024 at 8:11 p.m.

It isn't hard to watch the games I don't need to watch every NFL game the only Lions game I didn't watch live was when it was on Prime Video even know I have Prime I don't stream I'll be one of the last ones to do it, I saw the Lions VS Packers on Dec, 5 encore/repeat late night on NFL Network. Or if the NFL, NBA, NHL goes streaming only then I'll get those streaming services that have the games.