The NFL Makes December 25 Merrier

Roger Goodell

The NFL will make a Christmas Day tripleheader a permanent fixture, Commissioner Roger Goodell announced on The Pat McAfee Show.

“We will clearly have three games every year,” he said. This season, Netflix will stream two games, and Amazon Prime Video will air one as part of its Thursday Night Football package, as confirmed at the NFL owners' meetings. Last Christmas, Steelers-Chiefs and Ravens-Texans drew 24.1 and 24.3 million viewers on Netflix, the most-streamed NFL games in U.S. history.

The 2025 NFL schedule, set for release on May 14, may reveal Christmas matchups earlier. While the NFL avoided Christmas games for years, it began tripleheaders in 2022 and 2023, scaling back to two games last season due to the holiday falling on a Wednesday. 

Goodell emphasized that three games will occur annually, regardless of the day, with Christmas falling on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday over the next three years, and Monday through Thursday from 2028 to 2031.

Roger Goodell NFL commish on Pat McAfee a few weeks ago, talking about how the Christmas Day scheduling will work, it being on a Wednesday. So the Chiefs will play Saturday the week before. Same amount of days as if a team plays on TNF, following a Sunday game. This makes sense. pic.twitter.com/I6MaEMG2UA

— Lexi (@lexiosborne) May 15, 2024

Goodell noted interest from teams in becoming a Christmas regular, like the Lions and Cowboys on Thanksgiving, but the NFL has no plans to designate a specific franchise. He also revealed a tweak to Thanksgiving, with the first game’s kickoff likely shifting from 12:30 p.m. ET to 1 p.m. ET to align with traditional windows, compared to the current 12:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. ET slots.