The Eagles will play a return engagement on Christmas Day. No, not the Grammy Award–winning rock band; the Emmy Award–winning broadcasting family.
The father-son duo of Ian Eagle and Noah Eagle will again call Netflix’s Christmas Day NFL doubleheader for the second straight year. They confirmed the assignment exclusively at Front Office Sports’s Tuned In sports media conference in New York on Tuesday.
The 56-year-old Ian Eagle is poised to handle play-by-play for Netflix’s stream of Cowboys-Commanders at 1 p.m. ET. His 28-year-old son Noah Eagle is set to call Lions-Vikings at 4:30 p.m. ET.
Ian Eagle, who works for both CBS Sports and Amazon Prime Video, will team up with CBS colleagues Nate Burleson and Matt Ryan for the NFC East clash between Dallas and Washington from Landover, MD. Noah Eagle will pair with Super Bowl winner Drew Brees in the broadcast booth for the NFC North showdown between Detroit and Minnesota in Minneapolis.
After flopping on-air at NBC Sports in 2020 and 2021, Brees has been publicly campaigning for a shot at the NFL broadcast booth. The future Hall of Famer told FOX Today last September he wanted another chance. And ‘Tuned In’ predicted last November that the former Saints QB would get it.
“I think I could be the absolute best at it, if given the opportunity. I valued my time at NBC so much, for that year after I played, I spent most of that time in-studio on Sunday Night Football, having to work with some incredible people. … But I didn’t really get the chance to broadcast NFL games,” Brees told FOX Today. “And that’s what I feel like I’m most qualified to do. That’s what I feel like I’m most passionate about. And certainly where my knowledge base lies, right? … That to me is something I’d love to do down the road when the time is right.”
CBS Sports is producing both of this year’s games for Netflix, while NFL Media will handle studio programming pre- and post-game.
The streamer entrusted the Eagles to call its first NFL games last Christmas, flanked by color commentators and studio analysts drawn from various NFL media partners.
Last Christmas, Ian Eagle called the early Chiefs-Steelers game with analysts Nate Burleson and J.J. Watt of CBS, plus sideline reporters Melanie Collins of CBS and Stacey Dales of NFL Network. Noah Eagle called the later Ravens-Texans game with Fox’s Greg Olsen as analyst and NFL Network’s Jamie Erdahl and Steve Wyche as sideline reporters. Netflix had previously asked Fox to allow its No. 1 team Kevin Burkhardt and Tom Brady to call one of the games. Fox said no.
This year, Fox Sports and ESPN were steadfast in declining to allow their talents to participate in Netflix’s doubleheader. Last year, Fox lent Olsen to Netflix, while ESPN NFL personalities Mina Kimes and Laura Rutledge were involved with the streamer’s studio coverage.
As part of a three-year deal with the NFL, Netflix is paying an estimated $150 million per year to stream its Christmas Day doubleheaders. The media company set the record for most-streamed NFL games in U.S. history last year, averaging over 24 million viewers for the two Yuletide games. With superstar singer Beyonce delivering a landmark halftime show in Houston, viewership for Texans-Ravens peaked at over 27 million viewers.
