Why NFL Believes Christmas Can Rival Thanksgiving Day

The NFL has become inextricably entwined with American holidays. 

On Thanksgiving Day, the league will broadcast three games: Lions-Packers on Fox (1 p.m. ET),  Chiefs-Cowboys on CBS (4:30) and Bengals-Ravens on NBC (8:20). 

Then on Black Friday, Amazon Prime Video will stream Eagles-Bears (3 p.m.). And on Christmas Day, the NFL will offer viewers another triple-header: Cowboys-Commanders and Lions-Vikings (both on Netflix at 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. respectively) and Chiefs-Broncos in prime time (8:15 p.m.).

Aside from the unofficial national holiday that’s Super Bowl Sunday, holidays consistently generate the NFL’s biggest TV audiences.

Three years ago, Cowboys-Giants on Thanksgiving Day averaged a monster 42.1 million viewers in the late-afternoon window—making it the most-watched regular-season game in the league’s 105-year history. Last year’s Lions-Bears on CBS was the most-watched early Thanksgiving Day game on record, averaging 37.5 million viewers.

Meanwhile, Netflix’s two Christmas Day games in 2024 averaged 26.5 million viewers—making them the two most streamed NFL games ever in the U.S. 

Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s executive vice president of media distribution, has been leading the league’s holiday expansion strategy. 

During a one-on-one interview with Front Office Sports, the former Princeton football player said he believed the NFL’s Christmas Day viewership could one day rival Thanksgiving. 

FOS: Last Thanksgiving, Fox’s late-afternoon broadcast of Cowboys-Giants averaged 38.8 million viewers. And CBS’s early game nearly matched it. What is it about the confluence of food, family, and football on Turkey Day?

Hans Schroeder: What we’ve seen on Thanksgiving is that day continues to grow, not only as a holiday in this country with friends and family getting together, but also football. You look across the day at how big the audiences we get on Thanksgiving. This was a year, going into the scheduling process, where based on the matchups, we just had a lot of great games sprinkled across the schedule. We decided that based on last year, and the numbers, and the audience, and how many people were watching, to really see how high Thanksgiving can get. 

We have great matchups across the day. You look at last year, it was 37 million and 38 million between the two games. We’re going to have a great game early, with Green Bay and Detroit, starting a little bit later at 1 p.m. [instead of the usual 12: 30 kickoff]. That [early] game last year averaged over 40 million from 2:30 on. It just speaks to the audience—and how people are getting together and watching football across that day. We had the highest regular-season game ever on Thanksgiving [in 2022], a little over 42 million for Giants-Cowboys. We’re really excited to see what the biggest matchups of the year and the league can do in that window on Thanksgiving afternoon. That leads into a great game on Thanksgiving night, with the return of Joe Burrow and the Bengals and the Ravens. That’s a great divisional rivalry. 

Then you get into Black Friday with Bears-Eagles. There’s incredible demand in Philadelphia for the tickets. Then you extend it through the weekend. We’re really excited. The core of it is, we try to give good games to all of our partners, and make sure each partner gets their share of the top matchups.

FOS: Could Chiefs-Cowboys in the late afternoon Thanksgiving window become your most-watched regular season game? Or the first to surpass 50 million viewers?

HS: Look, we’re seeing what the ceiling is with Thanksgiving. We’ve seen how attractive it is…We’re excited to deliver for our fans. We’re also excited about Green Bay-Detroit. There’s going to be a huge audience for the early game. That all leads into a great Bengals-Ravens game. We’re certainly excited to see how high up can be here…Also, Fox is going to stream the [early] game on Tubi. I think over 15 million people watched the Super Bowl last year on Tubi. It’s another great way to expand reach with that early game in Detroit. We’re excited to see, with one of our best windows and one of our biggest games, what is the ceiling we can reach? It’s going to be fun to watch.

FOS: For decades, the NBA dominated Christmas. But the NFL is offering Yuletide tripleheaders. Is Christmas now an NFL holiday?

HS: Christmas has absolutely become a holiday, with Netflix and everything they did last year to continue to build that day for our fans. This year we’ll have a tripleheader with Amazon on Thursday night. I think our fans are the ones who speak to us. They made it clear they love football on Christmas. I think it will rival Thanksgiving in the not-too-distant future. 

FOS: Love that the NFL is celebrating the late, great John Madden’s legacy on Thanksgiving. How important was Madden in turning Turkey Day into an NFL holiday?

HS: You think of Pat [Summerall] and John calling those games for years, and the turkey legs afterwards, telestrating the turkey and how to eat it. His whole presence. That’s why we try to honor the coach throughout the day and across those games… 

FOS: Hans, you played a critical role in claiming Black Friday as a new holiday for the NFL. Talk about that game’s growth in just three seasons.

HS: We’re on our third Black Friday with Amazon. They’ve done an incredible job promoting and growing that as an NFL window. Based on the growth of Thanksgiving, it just feels like our fans wanted more games across the weekend. This is a way we can deliver for them, with another fun matchup. We just thought, “Bears-Eagles sounds like a football game.” That’s what Coach [Madden] would always say about a great game, I’ve heard. Howard Katz [senior vice president of broadcasting] ran the schedule forever. He actually used that saying during the scheduling process. This is Howard’s last year as part of the schedule process. In some ways it’s a tribute to both of them. This just felt like a classic football game on that Friday afternoon in Philly. 

FOS: Prime will stream the Black Friday game to a worldwide audience, not just the U.S. Ditto for the Netflix games on Christmas Day. Is this a smart strategy for the NFL to build your international audiences?

HS: We love the time slot. Amazon obviously has a global platform that rivals other large video platforms. But it’s also in a time slot that’s perfect when you think about distribution. At 3 p.m. here, you’re reaching Europe in prime time. Canada, South America…It really is a well-positioned window. And a great way to extend and grow that window around the world. Amazon has put a bunch of work into it. I think they’ll do an incredible job making that a global experience.

FOS: Any news on the NFL opting out early from your current 11-year media rights deals valued at $111 billion? Maybe starting talks with your media partners as early as next year?

HS: To clarify exactly what [Commissioner Roger Goodell] said, we could be in the market as early as next year. But I don’t think he said, or committed, to any definitive timing. More importantly, we’re always talking to our partners. Whenever our partners want to talk about something, we’re going to be ready and willing to do that. That’s what we did this year when we put in the doubleheader with Fox in Week 16. That’s a good example of that. Or the Peacock game in primetime in Week 17. We’re always talking to partners about the opportunity to do more together. We’ll continue to do that. 

FOS: The commissioner said he believes your rights are already undervalued, given what’s happened in the market with the NBA and NHL.

HS: If you look across the media, sports continues to show a unique value. We certainly think we’re at the top of that list, with the value and the unique audiences we drive. And the value we drive for our partners, the value we create for our fans. We’re excited about how the media continues to grow. How broadcast continues to stay strong. Digital is creating broadcast-like audiences now. We just think that’s a testament to our great partners. But also the role sports plays in the media landscape. And the NFL uniquely within that mix. 

FOS: Is the NFL considering selling a new rights package of international games?  

HS: We really like the mix and the totality of our packages today. But we’ve been very public, from the commissioner to Peter O’Reilly, our head of international, we think there’s opportunities to bring football to more fans around the world. As we do that, we’ll certainly think about how we do that in the best possible way with our current partners and potentially new partners. But we really like where we are with our game mix and how we distribute our games. We’ll look at new opportunities when they come up.