For decades, the opening of presents and family time on Christmas day has been accompanied by a single sport: Basketball. The tradition of the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) games on Christmas day date back to 1947 and entertain millions with a full slate of marquee matchups played by the best teams in the league. But recently, a new challenger has emerged to the holiday spotlight. The National Football League (NFL), which has long been associated with Thanksgiving, has increasingly made attempts at infiltrating the Christmas day sports spotlight. This shift has ignited a new rivalry not between teams, but between America’s two most popular sports leagues.

The NFL first attempted putting games on Christmas in 1971 with two playoff matchups following the NBA-ABA merger, which combined the two professional basketball associations in the U.S into a single league. However, the league received complaints about the games disrupting holiday dinners after the Chiefs-Dolphins game went into double overtime (the longest game ever played). This prompted the NFL to avoid scheduling games on Christmas, not having a game on the day for almost two decades. There have been games played on Christmas after the incident, but for the most part professional football and Christmas has rarely been paired together. That was until 2020, when the NFL announced it would have annual Christmas day games, featuring high stakes games late in the regular season. This move put the NFL in competition with the long standing sports entertainer on Christmas Day–the NBA.

This Christmas Day rivalry is not just about tradition, but about dollars and dominance. The NBA’s revenue strategy is built on volume, with a long 82 game regular season and seven game series playoffs. On Christmas Day they have a five game slate, running from noon to around midnight, making it the biggest source of background sports entertainment for the entire day. Their strategy focuses on consistently showcasing the biggest stars and hottest teams, helping them average millions of viewers across the hosting networks. In contrast, the NFL’s strategy is built on peak viewership. With only a 17 game regular season, the NFL’s ways of amassing large viewers for its much less frequent games is very much maintained in their Christmas game schedule. While the NBA stretches its audience across five windows, the NFL plays only two or three of the highly anticipated matchups that reliably draw huge numbers. For example, in 2023, the NBA’s most watched game averaged around 7.8 million viewers, a solid number. But the NFL’s games averaged over 27 million viewers a piece, completely dwarfing the NBA’s viewership. The disparity between them goes to show the NFL’s superior power to command a mass audience.

The difference in schedule strategies may be what is holding the NBA back. The NBA’s long season means each individual game isn’t that important. Many sports fans feel like teams don’t try their hardest every game. This narrative surrounding the league has been around for a long time and the NBA has tried addressing with the launch of the NBA Cup in the middle of the regular season to entice teams into competing harder. The NFL, on the other hand, packs its schedule into a shorter 17 games, and as a result, every game counts for getting into the playoffs. Games get more intense as the season progresses and by Christmas time with playoffs right around the corner, games are all the more competitive and have serious consequences. Fans know this, and are more than likely going to watch that game they think is more important and competitive.

This Christmas in 2025 the rival leagues are at it again, with the NBA having 5 games straight for about 12 hours from 12:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. eastern, and the NFL lining up a triple header starting at one and the last game kicking off at 8:15. The Washington Commanders will get things started for the NFL against their Division rival Dallas Cowboys. With the hometown team in the commanders getting a feature on this special day, it’s probably safe to say that the majority of our school, and the DMV(D.C, Maryland, Virginia) area will be on Netflix watching the game. But outside the D.C metropolitan area, what do the people prefer? Before 2020 it wasn’t even a question, the NBA was the clear favorite. However in just 5 years the NFL already averaged millions of more viewers and that trend looks likely to continue.

Personally I’ve always felt that the Christmas season marked the shift from football to basketball in the sports spotlight. Basketball is traditionally associated with this time of the year and every Christmas I watch and follow the NBA games that always feature my second favorite team: the Knicks. The long standing tradition of the classic 5 game slate on December 25th is something I’ll always choose to watch. Lots of people feel the same way regardless of the ratings and I think LeBron said it best in 2024 declaring to the rest of the sports world that “Christmas is our day.”