How the NFL is ruining the NBA's Christmas

The NFL has decided to take over Christmas. Whether it will become a new tradition in the United States is still too early to tell, but in the meantime the American football league has decided to go big. First of all, an agreement has been made with Netflix for the exclusive broadcast of Christmas games for the next three years. Just for 2024, the agreement for live streaming of two games - Kansas City Chiefs vs Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens vs Houston Texans - will allow the NFL to earn 150 million dollars. Astronomical figures, but justified by the numbers, those of the viewers: as reported by Associated Press, in 2023 an average of 29 million viewers watched live the match between Las Vegas Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs for a total average of 28 million viewers spread across all three games played on December 25th. And this year, to leave nothing to chance, the NFL and Netflix have also called in the big names: on the occasion of the match between Ravens and Texans there will also be a Halftime Show similar to the one at the Super Bowl, featuring Beyoncé in her hometown.

2024 will be the fourth consecutive year in which the NFL has scheduled games on Christmas Day, but never before has it felt like Commissioner Roger Goodell has succeeded in his mission, which is to steal Christmas from the NBA. As a tradition, Thanksgiving Day is dedicated to the NFL, with no NBA games scheduled for that day, while Christmas is dedicated to the NBA and its marathon of games starting with the classic matinee on the East Coast, this year with all eyes on Madison Square Garden in New York where Victor Wembanyama and his San Antonio Spurs are expected, and ending with a big match out West, between the Phoenix Suns of Kevin Durant and the Denver Nuggets of Nikola Jokic. Even the NBA has left nothing to chance, relying as always on its most representative players, from Luka Doncic to Jason Tatum, from Stephen Curry to LeBron James. Yet there is a feeling that there has been a vibe shift, as if the hype for Christmas now revolves more around the NFL than the NBA.

This situation intersects with a broader conversation that is currently taking place in the United States involving the NBA. Specifically, the decline in television ratings has been the main topic of discussion in these first months of the Regular Season, above the performances of superstars and teams. The main criticism that has been leveled against the league is that the game has become predictable, ruined in some way by the constant and obsessive pursuit of the three-point shot by all teams. A criticism that has been ongoing for weeks, finding support from journalists and former players, and culminating in a series of outlandish theories to solve the problem. The decline in viewers has also been confirmed by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who has emphasized that this trend has been part of a larger decline in cable TV viewership. It is worth noting that this decline only affects the American market, while the NBA remains the most popular professional league in the world in terms of social media and television viewership. In fact, this declining phase of the local audience curve has not prevented the league from closing an unprecedented deal, a contract for television rights worth 76 billion dollars for the next 11 years, which will go into effect next season with the big new addition of Amazon Prime Video.