The NFL is testing you. Season by season, day by day, the NFL is seeing just how much you\u2019re willing to give, and give up, to follow The Shield.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not talking about money, although the NFL is testing the limits of that, too, posting more games on more streaming services with ever-escalating subscription fees.<\/p>\n
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The NFL is now testing just how much time you\u2019re willing to surrender. Ready to devote your Wednesdays to the league, too? You\u2019d better be. It\u2019s coming.<\/p>\n
Draft your Yahoo Fantasy Baseball team for the 2026 MLB Season<\/a><\/p>\n You \u2014 and by \u201cyou,\u201d I mean you, me, all of us football freaks \u2014 have proven you\u2019re willing to watch football on Sunday mornings, afternoons and evenings, plus Thursday nights and Monday nights. You\u2019ll get up early for the Europe games, you\u2019ll follow the NFL onto Saturdays after college football is done, you\u2019ll surrender your entire Thanksgiving Day and a good chunk of Christmas, too.<\/p>\n Every single time the NFL breaks into new territory on the calendar, eight figures\u2019 worth of NFL fans follow. Consider a few stats from the 2025 season:<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The Chiefs-Cowboys game on Thanksgiving<\/a> drew 57.23 million viewers, the most-watched regular-season game in NFL history.<\/p>\n On Christmas Day<\/a>, Lions-Vikings drew an estimated 27.5 million viewers, Cowboys-Commanders drew 19.9 million, impressive when you consider both were on Netflix. Broncos-Chiefs drew 21.1 million on Prime despite the absence of Patrick Mahomes.<\/p>\n Christmas Day in particular is notable because of the way the NFL absolutely muscled the NBA right off its traditional corner. While the NBA enjoyed its best Christmas Day numbers in 15 years last year, the five individual games averaged 5.5 million viewers each \u2026 or roughly a quarter of the NFL\u2019s numbers.<\/p>\n Charles Barkley spent Christmas raging in impotent frustration at the NFL\u2019s march. \u201cThe NFL got greedy and started adding Christmas games,” Barkley said on Inside the NBA<\/a>. \u201cWe used to have this day to ourselves, but Roger Goodell, and them pigs at the NFL always want to hog every day of the week now. Christmas is an NBA day.\u201d<\/p>\n Not anymore. For most of America, the NBA is what you turn to on Christmas when the NFL\u2019s not on, and Thanksgiving dinners get scheduled around key kickoffs.<\/p>\n Barkley\u2019s indignant Christmas Day phrasing referenced that famous, instant-classic line from Mark Cuban about the NFL\u2019s greedy expansionism: \u201cPigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.\u201d<\/a> It\u2019s a catchy line, and it surely plays well in business schools and consultants\u2019 strategic proposals.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you try to take it too far,\u201d added Cuban, the former owner of the NBA\u2019s Dallas Mavericks, \u201cpeople turn the other way. I\u2019m just telling you, when you\u2019ve got a good thing and you get greedy, it always, always, always, always, always turns on you. That\u2019s Rule No. 1 of business.\u201d<\/p>\n Seems like a valid rule \u2026 right up until you realize Cuban said that all the way back in 2014, multiple troughs ago. Whatever rules apply to other sports, other businesses, the NFL steps right over \u2014 or just devours \u2014 them.<\/p>\n