{"id":644959,"date":"2026-01-01T06:51:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T06:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/644959\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T06:51:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T06:51:18","slug":"nfl-christmas-average-dips-but-lions-vikings-sets-streaming-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/644959\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Christmas average dips, but Lions-Vikings sets streaming record"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a repeat of last year, the NFL\u2019s streaming-exclusive Christmas Day audience took a hit overall but set a new record on the platform.<\/p>\n

NFL Christmas Day games averaged 22.9 million viewers across Netflix and Amazon Prime Video (including local over-the-air simulcasts in the home markets), trailing only the past two years as the league\u2019s highest average on the holiday since 2011. Viewership declined 5% from last year\u2019s two-game average of more than 24 million on Netflix and 20% from two years ago, when the league averaged nearly 29 million for a broadcast network tripleheader on CBS, FOX and ABC.<\/p>\n

Though down overall, the Christmas slate was highlighted by a streaming-record 27.5 million viewers for Lions-Vikings on Netflix \u2014 up 13% from the previous record of 24.3 million for Ravens-Texans in the same window on Christmas last year. Keep in mind that between last Christmas and now, Nielsen has expanded its out-of-home viewing sample to cover 100 percent of markets and shifted to a new \u201cBig Data + Panel\u201d methodology that combines its existing panel with data from smart TVs, set-top boxes and select providers\u2019 first-party streaming data.<\/p>\n

The Vikings\u2019 win, which peaked with 30 million viewers, delivered the tenth-largest audience of the NFL season (including Adobe Analytics data for NBC games).<\/p>\n

Netflix now owns the three-largest streaming-exclusive NFL audiences, with last year\u2019s two Christmas games ranking second and third. In fourth place is last year\u2019s Steelers-Ravens Wild Card game on Amazon Prime Video. (Steelers-Ravens ranks as the highest rated of those games<\/a>, pending final results for Lions-Vikings.)<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, Netflix averaged 19.9 million for Cowboys-Commanders \u2014 down 17% from Chiefs-Steelers last year (24.1M). While it is generally assumed that the Cowboys can draw regardless of their record, neither Dallas nor Washington is a playoff team this year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Dec 25, 2025; Kansas City, Missouri, USA; General view of the Amazon Prime Thursday Night Football logo at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Shifting to primetime, Broncos-Chiefs averaged 21.06 million in the season finale of NFL \u201cThursday Night Football\u201d on Amazon Prime Video \u2014 the largest audience for \u201cTNF\u201d since it moved to Amazon in 2022.<\/p>\n

While the \u201cTNF\u201d package has included Christmas games \u2014 most recently in 2021, when Browns-Packers averaged 28.59 million on FOX and NFL Network on a Saturday afternoon \u2014 this year marked the first time that the NFL has ever aired games on Christmas when the holiday fell on a Thursday. As a result, Broncos-Chiefs ranks as the most-watched Thursday edition of \u201cTNF\u201d since Saints-Cowboys on FOX and NFL Network in 2018 (21.40M). (Unlike the old \u201cTNF\u201d package, which included a number of Saturday games, Amazon\u2019s package is Thursday-exclusive. Its Black Friday game is a separate contract.)<\/p>\n

All three Christmas Day games appeared to be at the top of the marquee when the schedule was announced in May. The Lions and Vikings were atop the NFC last season, the Commanders made the NFC title game and the Cowboys and Chiefs were the league\u2019s two biggest draws. But only the Lions and Broncos were still in the playoff hunt by Christmas.<\/p>\n

As is no surprise, the NFL easily outdrew the competing five-game NBA Christmas Day slate, which averaged 5.5 million \u2014 officially up 4% from last year and that league\u2019s largest audience on the holiday since 2018<\/a>, with all of the attendant methodological caveats.<\/p>\n

This year was the second-straight in which the NBA\u2019s Christmas audience increased and the NFL\u2019s declined. As may not be a total coincidence, it was also the second-straight year that all five NBA games aired on broadcast television and each of the NFL games aired exclusively on streaming.<\/p>\n

Unlike last year \u2014 and unlike the NBA \u2014 the NFL did not publicize a reach figure for its Christmas games. The three games reached 76 million viewers, but the league said that it has been unable to verify reach figures since Nielsen began its rollout of \u201cBig Data + Panel\u201d earlier this fall. \u201cThe NFL continues to work with Nielsen on the reach metric and to evaluate additional data throughout the season,\u201d the league said in a Wednesday statement. \u201cWe hope to have a reach metric that we feel comfortable using around NFL games and events in the future as it helps to illustrate the total audience viewing our properties.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NBA announced a reach figure of 47.19 million earlier Wednesday. Reach is defined as the number of viewers who watched at least one minute of the telecast. The NBA games spanned more than 13 hours and the NFL games more than ten.<\/p>\n

It should be noted that for as much attention as the NFL\u2019s Christmas Day slate has received in recent years, the league averaged nearly twice as many viewers for its Thanksgiving Day tripleheader. Those three games averaged 44.7 million across CBS, FOX and NBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a repeat of last year, the NFL\u2019s streaming-exclusive Christmas Day audience took a hit overall but set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2073],"tags":[71027,63085,65679,68826,7,68827,233,259,2529,6,15705,234,71032],"class_list":{"0":"post-644959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-vikings","8":"tag-broncos-tv-ratings","9":"tag-chiefs-tv-ratings","10":"tag-commanders-tv-ratings","11":"tag-cowboys-tv-ratings","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-lions-tv-ratings","14":"tag-minnesota","15":"tag-minnesota-vikings","16":"tag-minnesotavikings","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-nfl-on-christmas","19":"tag-vikings","20":"tag-vikings-tv-ratings"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115818522103993652","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}