The NFL continues to expand its takeover of the holiday season, and the latest schedule release featured even more games on days not previously featured on the slate.
The NFL’s grip on the holiday sports calendar continues to grow stronger every season. While fans may disapprove of the multiple streaming platforms needed every year, the NFL continues to grow its audience and expand to the streaming world.
Remember the 2024 Christmas game between the Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans? Of course not, it was an absolute blowout with the Texans only scoring two points from a safety. But what you will remember is the NFL brought Beyonce in to perform at halftime on Netflix for the first-ever Netflix NFL Christmas Gameday halftime show. The league will captivate fans no matter what on the streaming side, regardless of the outrage.
This is just proof the NFL is doing something right to continue to add games to Wednesdays and Fridays now. The latest schedule was released Thursday with even more days being taken over by the NFL in the fall and winter months.
Thanksgiving Tradition
For decades, Thanksgiving belonged to football. Christmas belonged to the NBA. Now, the NFL is aggressively turning nearly every major holiday into a showcase event, and the numbers continue to prove why the league keeps expanding its footprint.
What once started as the traditional Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving Day games has evolved into yearly must-see matchups with throughout the day. The Lions have hosted Thanksgiving games annually since 1934, while the Cowboys became Thanksgiving hosts beginning in 1966. Over time, those games became woven into the identity of the holiday itself, creating one of the strongest traditions in American sports. You will never see these two teams play on the road for Thanksgiving, a tradition fans are still grateful for.
The NFL later expanded Thanksgiving into a tripleheader format with a rotating primetime matchup, eventually turning the holiday into one of the league’s biggest television events of the entire season. Then came the next wave.
The NFL introduced a Black Friday game in 2023, officially extending football into Thanksgiving weekend. The league partnered with Amazon Prime Video to create a standalone national showcase the day after Thanksgiving, immediately giving the NFL another major television window during one of the busiest sports weekends of the year.
Now, the league is taking things another step further with the addition of a “Thanksgiving Eve” game in 2026, effectively creating an NFL showcase on the night before Thanksgiving. The move signals how aggressively the league continues expanding its holiday reach while capitalizing on massive television audiences and national attention.
Last season’s Thanksgiving Day slate delivered record-breaking viewership numbers for the NFL. According to league data, the three Thanksgiving games averaged 44.7 million viewers, the highest Thanksgiving average ever recorded. The Chiefs-Cowboys matchup alone reached 57.2 million viewers, becoming the most-watched regular season NFL game on record.
Even the primetime Bengals-Ravens Thanksgiving matchup drew 28.4 million viewers, another reminder of how dominant the NFL has become during holiday programming.
2026 NFL Thanksgiving Week Games
Wednesday, Nov. 25: Green Bay Packers at Los Angeles Rams (8 p.m. ET)
Thursday, Nov. 26: Chicago Bears at Detroit Lions (Noon ET); Philadelphia Eagles at Dallas Cowboys (4:30 p.m.); Kansas City Chiefs at Buffalo Bills (8:20 p.m.)
Friday, Nov, 27: Denver Broncos at Pittsburgh Steelers (3 p.m. ET)
NFL Impact On The Christmas Sports Schedule
Meanwhile, the NBA actually experienced one of its strongest Christmas performances in years in 2025. The league announced the slate reached up to 47.2 million viewers, marking the NBA’s best Christmas audience in 15 years. Games averaged 5.5 million fans watching across ABC and ESPN platforms.
Still, even with the NBA posting major gains, the NFL’s individual games continued to withstand almost every Christmas basketball window. NFL Christmas broadcasts averaged 22.9 million viewers across Netflix and Amazon Prime Video despite being streaming-exclusive games. The Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions’ Netflix game crossed a streaming record of 27.5 million viewers, proving the importance of Christmas games to the league.
That dominance is exactly why the NFL keeps adding more holiday inventory.
Christmas Eve/Day Games
Thursday, Dec. 24: Houston Texans at Philadelphia (8:15 p.m. ET)
Friday, Dec. 25: Green Bay Packers at Chicago Bears (1 p.m. ET) | Buffalo Bills at Denver Broncos (4:30 p.m.) | Los Angeles Rams at Seattle Seahawks (8:15 p.m.)
New Year’s Eve Game Takes Centerstage
The NFL’s scheduling around New Year’s has also quietly become another storyline to watch, especially involving the Bengals and Ravens. Historically, the NFL regular season schedule typically ended around New Year’s Day or Eve, with the afternoon slate being filled. You won’t often see the league schedule a New Year’s Eve night game as it would be competing with college football bowl games.
The last New Year’s Eve night game was between the Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers in 2023.
Over the past several seasons, Cincinnati and Baltimore have consistently found themselves scheduled against each other late in the year, often near the New Year’s holiday as playoff races intensify. That timing only adds to the history between the franchises.
The most memorable example came in the afternoon on New Year’s Eve in 2017 when Andy Dalton connected with Tyler Boyd for a dramatic 49-yard touchdown on fourth-and-12 late in the fourth quarter. The touchdown eliminated the Ravens from playoff contention while simultaneously ending the Buffalo Bills’ 17-year playoff drought. The play instantly became one of the defining regular season moments of the decade and remains legendary among both Bengals and Bills fans.
Now, with another Bengals-Ravens matchup scheduled for the night of New Year’s Eve, the NFL once again places one of its best rivalries into a massive standalone calendar window. Between Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow and the consistent playoff implications attached to AFC North football, the league clearly understands the value of putting meaningful rivalry games around the holidays.
At this point, holiday football is no longer just tradition. It has become one of the NFL’s biggest business strategies.
From Thanksgiving to Black Friday, Christmas, New Year’s Eve and now Thanksgiving Eve, the NFL continues turning the sports calendar into its own national showcase, and the television numbers keep proving why.
New Year’s Eve Game
Thursday, Dec. 31: Baltimore Ravens vs. Cincinnati Bengals (8:15 p.m. ET)
