NBA Lost Christmas Day Ratings Battle Against NFL For 4th Straight Year

The NBA continues to struggle against the NFL in Christmas Day ratings. NBA viewership declined for at least four of the five Christmas Day games. The NFL has played at least one game on this holiday since 2020. So far, football is winning the ratings battle.

The featured Celtics-Lakers matchup on Monday was the most-watched game of the day with an average of 5.0 million across ABC (3.31 million) and ESPN (1.69 million), down 18% from Bucks-Celtics in the same window last year (6.08 million).

As for the ESPN-scheduled games, the Bucks-Knicks led the network with 2.49 million viewers across ESPN and ESPN2, a 39% drop from Sixers-Knicks on ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2 last year (4.07 million). It should be noted that the Lakers, Celtics, Warriors, and Knicks are four of the most-popular NBA teams.

The Mavericks-Suns night game averaged just 1.47 million on ESPN, a 42% decrease from Suns-Nuggets last year on ABC and ESPN (1.2 million, 2.52 million).

Of course, the Sixers-Heat averaged only 1.3 million on ESPN and ESPN2, an incredible 73% decline from Grizzlies-Warriors on ABC and ESPN a year ago (4.75 million).

Over 20 million more sports fans watched NFL games over NBA games on Christmas Day, basketball has lower ratings

Surprisingly, the Raiders-Chiefs game turned out to be the most-watched game this past Christmas. About 29.17 million people tuned in to watch the Las Vegas Raiders upset the Kansas City Chiefs on CBS. The Giants-Eagles game was the second most-viewed NFL matchup on Monday, with 29.02 million views on Fox.

Excluding the 2023 season, the NFL has played only 27 games on Christmas. In 1971, the Dallas Cowboys, Minnesota Vikings, Kansas City Chiefs, and Miami Dolphins played in the first NFL Christmas games. Since the NFL season was only 14 weeks at the time, the two Christmas games were divisional round playoff games.

The divisional matchup between the Chiefs and Dolphins became the longest game in NFL history. The game went into double overtime and lasted 82 minutes and 40 seconds of game time. It was not well received. This matchup turned off quite a few fans because of how long it took to end.

As a result, the NFL waited 18 years before playing on Christmas again in 1989. Although Christmas did fall on a Saturday or Sunday during this gap, the league actively avoided this particular holiday when scheduling its games.

Christmas fell on a Sunday in 1977, 1983, and 1988. The NFL elected to play its divisional playoff games on Saturday and Monday to avoid the runtime interfering with the viewers’ holiday plans, according to The Athletic.

The number of games played on Christmas has increased since Roger Goodell became commissioner in 2006. The NFL has played 15 of its 27 Christmas games between 2006 and 2022.

However, the NBA peaks during playoff time. The NFL beating the NBA in viewership right now isn’t shocking.