After last year's two streaming exclusive NFL games on Christmas Day, the league is doubling down and adding a third for media right partner Amazon.com Inc AMZN.
What Happened: With the 2025 NFL season only months away, fans won't get a peek at their teams’ schedules for at least another month.
Fans have come to expect three NFL games on Christmas Day, which this year falls on a Thursday. That may explain why Amazon is getting a game this year, as it currently holds the media rights to "Thursday Night Football."
As reported by Variety, the NFL will air three different games on Christmas Day, with Netflix Inc NFLX having two and Amazon one.
This could be considered a win for both Netflix and Amazon, given that they will likely have large audiences on the holiday. Netflix signed a three-year deal with the NFL that guaranteed two Christmas Day games in 2024 and at least one Christmas Day game in 2025 and 2026. Landing two games in back-to-back is a big win for the streaming giant.
Amazon has secured Thursday Night Football rights, streamed an exclusive NFL Playoffs game and landed the rights to the Black Friday game in the last two seasons to offset the traditional Thanksgiving Day games, which already have media partners.
Read Also: Netflix Stock To Get Boost From More NFL Content? Poll Shows Mixed Results
Why It's Important: Netflix averaged 24 million viewers for its two Christmas Day 2024 games with 65 million Americans watching at least a portion of one of its two games during the game.
Reports say that Netflix could be interested in additional NFL games, with the league having the potential to opt out of several media deals and renegotiate packages soon.
Netflix broke records with its Christmas Day games, which may have come at the expense of the NBA games that traditionally air on Christmas Day.
After the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Golden State Warriors on Christmas Day 2024, NBA star LeBron James declared the holiday as belonging to the NBA.
“I love the NFL. I love the NFL. But Christmas is our day,” James said.
The NBA aired five games on Christmas in 2024 with The Walt Disney Company DIS having rights across its ABC and ESPN channels alongside streaming on Disney+ and ESPN+.
NBA Christmas Day games averaged 5.25 million viewers in 2024, up 84% year over year. The teams involved may have helped the viewership, and all five games were available on ABC, while only two were the previous year.
This figure is the highest for the NBA on the holiday in five years. The Lakers and Warriors game averaged 7.76 million viewers, ranking as the NBA’s most-watched Christmas Day game since 2019.
NBA rights will be split between Disney, Comcast Corporation and Amazon beginning with the 2025-2026 season.
Given the success, the NFL is likely to keep running Christmas Day games, which could spell trouble for the NBA, Disney, or whoever has the rights to the 2025 Christmas Day games.
Price Action: Netflix stock trades at $932.12 versus a 52-week trading range of $542.01 to $1,064.50. Netflix stock is up 5.1% year-to-date in 2025 and up 51.8% over the last year.
Amazon stock trades at $195.56 versus a 52-week trading range of $151.61 to $242.52. Amazon stock is down 11.2% year-to-date in 2025 and up 8.3% over the last year.
Read Next:
Photo: Shutterstock
Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs
© 2025 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.