Noah DeVault
The NBA and NFL have started an uproar in sports fans’ lives about which sport Christmas Day belongs to.
The NFL had its first Christmas Day game in 1971, but it was a playoff game. The tradition of playing multiple games on the holiday didn’t start until 2020.
The NBA, however, had its first Christmas Day game in 1947, just one year after the league was founded. This marked the beginning of a tradition that has happened every year since, except for when a lockout occurred in 1998.
In 2024, the NFL brought in more viewers, peaking at 25 million, but only held two games. One of which had its peak viewership at halftime. Congrats, NFL, you have a concert during halftime.
The NBA was up 84% in total viewership on Christmas last year, averaging 5.25 million people across five games.
If the football teams didn’t play on Christmas Day I would happily eat my meal while watching the NBA like I did my whole childhood.
One more thing to consider is that the basketball games are all played on different channels, so people may not switch the channel when the first game is over. The NFL, however, had both games on the same channel back to back, so many Chiefs and Steelers fans left it on after their game without paying attention to the next game at all.
If the football teams didn’t play on Christmas Day I would happily eat my meal while watching the NBA like I did my whole childhood.
Noah Trapp
When you hear we’re gonna watch the Christmas Day game what do you think of — NFL or NBA? For me, it’s the NFL.
Even though the NBA started doing Christmas Day specials in 1947, 24 years before the NFL.
Christmas Day last year, the NFL dominated the viewership with two games averaging 24 million viewers but the NBA set their best viewer count in 5 years at 7.76 million.
That’s not even close to the average NFL game viewership at 18.58 million viewers.
The NBA did have an 84% increase in viewership from 2023 on Christmas Day.
The NFL’s first Christmas Day games were playoff match ups between the Dallas Cowboys and the Minnesota Vikings and the Miami Dolphins and the Kansas City Chiefs in 1971.
The Chiefs and Dolphins game in 1971 was also marked as the longest game of NFL history lasting a total of 82 minutes and 40 seconds.
The NBA did start the tradition first but the NFL has just been so much more popular across the United States
In my opinion the NFL is just much better to watch on Christmas Day even if it’s not my team playing.
Statistically speaking, even though the NFL started doing Christmas Day games 24 years later than the NBA, the NFL is still the more popular Christmas game.