Earlier today, ESPN, ABC, and NBA took a victory lap for the highest Christmas Day ratings the league had seen in five years. The league averaged 5.25 million viewers, up 84% from 2023 and the match-up between the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Lakers earned an impressive 7.76 million viewers, peaking at 8.32 million viewers at 7:30 PM PT. A few hours later, Netflix released its initial number for its inaugural NFL Christmas GameDay streaming events. If there was ever a “hold my beer” moment when it comes to dueling sports ratings it was this one.
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Partnering with third-party researcher Nielsen, the two NFL games reached 65 million viewers. And, according to Nielsen, Ravens-Texans (24.3M AMA) and Chiefs-Steelers (24.1M AMA) are the most-streamed NFL games in US history. Viewership for Ravens-Texans peaked with “Beyoncé Bowl,” Beyonce‘s halftime performance, with over 27 million viewers.
But, wait. These are, again, just the domestic figures. Netflix and Nielsen will release initial global streaming figures on Dec. 31. The games were available in over 200 international markets on the service. Netflix’s own Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight reached 108 global viewers in November.
Notably, Ravens-Texans, was the most-watched Christmas Day game on record among A18-34 with 5.1 million US viewers (based on records dating back to 2001). That being said, the numbers trailed the 29.48 and 29.02 viewers a pair of NFL games earned on Christmas Day just a year ago. That being said, these games easily topped Prime Video’s highest-rated game to date, a Lions-Packers game that reached 17.29 million viewers on Dec. 5.
In a statement, Bela Bajaria, Netflix Chief Content Officer, noted, “Bringing our members this record-breaking day of two NFL games was the best Christmas gift we could have delivered. We’re thankful for our partnership with the NFL, all of our wonderful on-air talent, and let’s please not forget the electrifying Beyoncé and the brilliant Mariah Carey.”
Hans Schroeder, NFL executive vice president of media distribution added, “We’re thrilled with our first Christmas Gameday on Netflix with NFL games being streamed to a global audience. Fans in all 50 states and over 200 countries around the world watched some of the league’s brightest stars along with a dazzling performance by Beyoncé in a historic day for the NFL.”
Netflix has a three-year deal with the NFL to stream Christmas Day games, but next year’s matches will be split with Prime Video. The Amazon streamer has a long-term deal for Thursday night games.
The streamer’s foray into live broadcasting, er, streaming will continue on January 6 when “WWE Raw” arrives as part of a 10 year deal.
According to a release from Netflix, AMA viewership figures are based on Fast National Live + Same Day data from Nielsen which includes out-of-home viewing and CBS local market viewing along with mobile and web data from Netflix and NFL+ mobile viewing from NFL.