Once upon a time Christmas Day belonged to the NBA.
Those days are long gone.
GettyPatrick Mahomes will make his Christmas Day debut[/caption]
The National Football League has taken over the holiday in full force, and this year, they are emptying the star-power tank.
Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs will travel to play the Pittsburgh Steelers, then Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens will take on C.J. Stroud and the Houston Texans.
Both games will be streamed on Netflix, while also being broadcast on TV in the competing team’s cities, and available on US mobile devices with NFL+.
It will be Netflix’s first ever live streamed football games.
“We couldn’t be more excited to be the first professional sports league to partner with Netflix to bring live games to fans around the world,” said Hans Schroeder, NFL executive vice president of media distribution, in a statement.
To add to the NFL’s own star power, the league and Netflix have also arranged for Beyonce to perform at the halftime of the Ravens-Texans game.
It doesn’t get much bigger than Beyonce performing on Christmas.
The Chiefs will face the Steelers at 1pm. EST, then at 4:30pm. EST, the Ravens will take on the Texans.
Christmas Day falls on a Wednesday this year, which has never been a traditional day to play an NFL game.
Commissioner Roger Goodell doesn’t care.
GettyJackson has been playing at an MVP-level[/caption]
The four teams playing on Christmas, played the previous Saturday, to try and give those teams an extra rest day.
The Chiefs beat the Texans 29-17, while the Ravens throttled the Steelers 34-17.
Last year, Christmas Day fell on a Monday, so it was much easier to schedule multiple games on the holiday.
There were three games last year on Christmas, with an average of 28.7 million viewers tuned in to one of three games.
The Las Vegas Raiders vs. the Chiefs; the New York Giants vs. the Philadelphia Eagles; and the Ravens vs. the San Francisco 49er’s.
The league, and Netflix, will be hoping to best last year’s viewership.