When the NFL announced that it would play games on Christmas Day in 2024 after previously signaling it would never play when the holiday falls on a Wednesday, all bets were off.
There was no reason to believe that the league wouldn’t just go for the whole enchilada and schedule a game on Christmas Eve as well, even though it falls on a Tuesday.
Even the NFL has limits, at least in theory.
PFT’s Mike Florio confirmed Wednesday that the NFL will not schedule a game on Tuesday, December 24.
Last season, the Patriots and Broncos played on Christmas Eve with an average of 10.21 million viewers tuning in. The year before that, the Raiders and Steelers played in front of around 10.94 million viewers. Both games were broadcast on NFL Network.
Meanwhile, the NFL has staked out Christmas Day as the better path forward to bigger audiences, where audiences have surpassed 20 million in the past two seasons. They’ve also signaled that Tuesday games might be a bridge too far when it comes to scheduling.
“We found a path to Wednesday this year,” NFL executive V.P. of media distribution Hans Schroeder said to the Wall Street Journal last month. “Tuesday might be a bridge too far.”
However, as Florio noted, there’s no reason to trust that the NFL won’t pull the trigger on a Tuesday game if it sees a financial path forward, player health and safety notwithstanding.
For now, at least, they’ll take the day off.
[PFT]
