The NFL has made Christmas Day games a staple in the annual league schedule. However, this year’s Christmas matchups didn’t have a particularly significant impact on the NFL playoff picture. Despite that, it still attracted a large number of viewers from the public.
How Did the NFL Matchup With the NBA in Christmas Viewership?
According to Ari Meirov, the NFL outlasted the NBA in Christmas Day viewership for its games.
He said on X, “Not particularly close, even with backup QBs in all three NFL games.”
For example, per the tweet, the San Antonio Spurs-Oklahoma City Thunder matchup drew 6.7 million viewers while the Detroit Lions-Minnesota Vikings matchup drew 27.5 million viewers on Netflix.
NFL and NBA viewership numbers for their Christmas games:
NFL (Netflix, Amazon):
– Cowboys-Commanders: 19.9M
– Lions-Vikings: 27.5M
– Broncos-Chiefs: 21.1MNBA (ESPN, ABC)
– Cavaliers-Knicks: 6.4M
– Spurs-Thunder: 6.7M
– Mavericks-Warriors: 6.1M
– Rockets-Lakers: 5.4M
-… pic.twitter.com/QwY2Zswl3R— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) December 31, 2025
The Dallas Cowboys beat the Jayden Daniels-less Washington Commanders, and then Max Brosmer led the Vikings to upset the Lions.
Finally, the Denver Broncos held off a Patrick Mahomes-less Kansas City Chiefs on the road. The early games aired live on Netflix, while the later game aired on Amazon Prime Video.
The Cowboys-Commanders game drew 19.9 million viewers on Netflix, and the Broncos-Chiefs game nabbed 21.1 million viewers on Prime Video.
Of the six starting NFL quarterbacks, two of them got less than 75 yards passing. For the Vikings, Brosmer had only 51 yards, and Chris Oladokun for the Chiefs threw for 65 yards.
A Huge Win for the NFL
It didn’t matter that the NFL Christmas games were only available to stream live. That didn’t stop the league from pulling big numbers and outlasting the NBA in viewership. Averaging close to 23 million viewers across the three games, which weren’t very appealing, is a massive victory for the NFL.
The NBA still had impressive numbers, despite the NFL drawing a larger viewership. The five NBA Christmas Day games drew 5.5 million viewers, up from the previous year. Per Richard Deitsch on X, “The NBA had a very good Christmas Day given the NFL comp. The five games averaged 5.5M viewers, up 4% from 2024.
The news comes as a massive hit for the NFL, as out of all the teams that played on Christmas, only one is making the playoffs, and that’s the Broncos. Quarterback Bo Nix has had a solid season, with a 79 QB Impact score, 25 touchdowns, and 11 interceptions, according to PFSN’s QB Impact metrics.
So, while the NBA saw an uptick in viewership from last year, the NFL outlasted them while only airing on streaming, with matchups that had little impact on the postseason. It shows that at the end of the day, football is still king.
