LeBron James said that the NBA is made for Christmas.
He’s right, but the league better be ready to make room for the NFL.
Netflix set records as the most-streamed NFL games in U.S. history while the NBA had its best holiday numbers in five years according to Nielsen.
The Kansas City Chiefs bested the Pittsburgh Steelers en route to securing the No. 1 seed in the AFC while the Baltimore Ravens dominated the Houston Texans in a 31-2 debacle.
According to Nielsen, 65 million U.S. viewers tuned in for at least one minute of one of the two NFL games.
Netflix press release:
Ravens-Texans: 24.3M viewers
Chiefs-Steelers: 24.1M viewersThese are fast nationals so finals will be slightly different. Good thing is, this is Nielsen (3rd-party, unlike Netflix’s 1st-party Tyson-Paul data) and measured as AMA (Average Minute… pic.twitter.com/Q6ASdiAeGV
— Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) December 27, 2024
Baltimore’s lopsided victory behind an MVP-worthy performance from Lamar Jackson drew in the second-most views for a Netflix livestream at 24.3 million average views. Meanwhile, Kansas City’s 29-10 road win against the AFC North franchise averaged 24.1 million.
The Nov. 14 fight between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson still holds the title, despite its glitching errors and multiple complaints on the format. That bout averaged a worldwide audience of 60 million and peaked at 65 million total streams.
Both games surpassed the previous streaming mark for an NFL game at 23 million for last season’s AFC wild-card game between the Chiefs and Miami Dolphins on Peacock.
And don’t forget about Queen Bey. Her 13-minute halftime show drew in the larget numbers from “The Hive,” with an average of over 27 million viewers. The Beyoncé Bowl also broke record-setting numbers on subscriptions globally.
Netflix NFL Christmas Gameday was a record-breaking day, reaching 65 million US viewers according to Nielsen!
With an average of more than 24 million people watching each game, Chiefs-Steelers and Ravens-Texans are now the top two most streamed NFL games in US history.… pic.twitter.com/m3CVRv41sq
— Netflix (@netflix) December 26, 2024
The hashtag #NFLonNetflix also trended, reaching top-five status in Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil and France. It ranked as high as sixth in the United States, according to the Global rating scale.
Christmas falls on a Thursday next year, so expect there to be two games at the minimum. Three? Given that “Thursday Night Football” will get one and the success of Netflix, one could assume a trio of matchups should be on display.
Knowing the NFL, that’s probably just the start.