The NFL is embracing midweek holiday spirit in 2024.
The league will hold two games on Christmas -- a Wednesday -- this season, Hans Schroeder, NFL executive vice president of media distribution, announced at the Annual League Meeting on Tuesday.
"From what we've seen the last couple years is really some unprecedent growth, and not just on Christmas, on Thanksgiving, too," Schroeder explained Tuesday. "The last couple of years have had the highest-regular season game ever viewed in the regular season. That mindset, that opportunity, that belief we have that football brings people together -- that's even truer on these big holidays that happen throughout the year.
"When we saw the viewership from this past year, really our fans spoke. We certainly saw and believe that they are very much enjoying and wanting NFL football on Christmas. So what we're going to do is we're going to play a couple of games, like we've typically played for well over a decade, probably more than that, on Saturday of Week 16, and then come back and play a couple of games on Christmas Day on Wednesday."
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said he didn't anticipate player health concerns being an issue with teams playing Christmas games on a short week.
"Well, I think the days are the same for us. We've done this," Goodell explained. "In fact, COVID was a learning opportunity, I think it was the first time we played on a Wednesday. It will not be a regular thing. It will be when Christmas falls on a Wednesday. But the time period between games has been done before. We have not seen any elevation of injuries. You all, and we, have had a major focus on Thursday night when we first put it in, and we've still not seen any kind of elevation of injuries. So I think we have this down."
The 2023 season featured three games on Christmas Day, which kicked off with the Raiders' shocking upset win over the Chiefs in Kansas City, and included a surprisingly close finish between the Giants and Eagles. Both games led up to a highly anticipated clash between elites in Santa Clara, California, where the Ravens dominated the 49ers in front of a prime-time audience.
Last season's Christmas Day tripleheader drew historic ratings, with all three games ranking among the top five Christmas Day NFL games on record, dating back to 1988. The Raiders-Chiefs stunner averaged 29.6 million viewers, making it the second most-watched Christmas Day game in NFL history behind only Bengals-Vikings in 1989. Giants-Eagles averaged 29 million viewers, while Ravens-49ers averaged 27.6 million -- a number that likely would have been higher had Baltimore not taken a commanding 30-12 lead early in the third quarter.
Those games occurred on a Monday, though, making 2024's Wednesday contests an interesting scheduling experiment. Judging by past efforts, this -- like the league's many broadcasting innovations before it -- will succeed.
The NFL is banking on its ever-growing popularity, and with recent ratings and togetherness in mind, intends to keep football intertwined with holiday traditions this winter, and perhaps, for years to come.
