The National Football League is enjoying strong viewership for the 2024 season with some records set on Thanksgiving Day, news that streaming giant Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX) likely welcomes as the company may be nervous after struggles with its live boxing event.
What Happened: While many people will be opening presents and enjoying time with families on Christmas Day, many will also tune into Netflix for two exclusive NFL games, similar to how they celebrated on Thanksgiving.
Netflix will stream its first-ever live NFL games on Christmas with two key matchups that could once again highlight the streaming giant's growth in sports.
At 1 p.m. ET, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs game will stream on Netflix, followed by the 4:30 p.m. ET matchup between the Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans.
NFL viewership has been good for the 2024 season, which could be good and bad for Netflix as the company struggled during its recent live boxing event that featured a headline match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson.
Netflix reported that over 60 million homes tuned into the boxing event, with a peak of 65 million. That event saw hundreds of thousands of people report issues with the stream and a class action lawsuit filed against the company.
The NFL recently reported the three games that aired on Thanksgiving set a new all-time record, with data dating back to 1988. The three games had 141 million viewers, a new record and an average of 34.2 million viewers per game, another record.
The early game between the Detroit Lions and Chicago Bears on CBS, a unit of Paramount Global (NASDAQ:PARA)(NASDAQ:PARAA), set a record with 37.5 million viewers, the highest average for the early Thanksgiving Day game.
The midday game between the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants on FOX, a unit of Fox Corp (NASDAQ:FOX)(NASDAQ:FOXA), averaged 38.8 million viewers, making it the fourth most watched Thanksgiving Day game ever and fifth most watched regular season NFL game ever.
Why It's Important: Thanksgiving Day games have long been highly watched given the event-driven nature of the games on a holiday with people off work and watching games together.
This could be similar on Christmas, which means Netflix could be in store for high viewership for its inaugural NFL games.
For comparison, Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) has the exclusive streaming rights to Thursday Night Football games and is averaging 13.3 million viewers for those games this season, up 8% year-over-year.
Amazon also streamed an exclusive game on Black Friday for the second straight year. The matchup between the Las Vegas Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs averaged 13.51 million viewers, up 41% year-over-year.
The high viewership, which is above Amazon's average, came with a close battle and the Chiefs surviving a last-minute push from the Raiders. The Chiefs are the most-watched NFL team this season, having some of the more popular games and the highest average across national television games.
For Netflix the odds are likely stacked for and against the company to have huge viewership, the big question is if the company can handle the demand and show the games without the same troubles it had during the boxing event.
The Chiefs (11-1), Steelers (9-3), Ravens (8-5) and Texans (8-5) are among the best teams in the NFL with each team ranking first or second in their division and all four teams currently in the NFL Playoffs if the season ended today.
The Texans game will also feature a halftime performance from Beyoncé, adding in potential non-football fan viewership on the holiday.
Add it all up and you have two games with top NFL teams, a holiday where people watch sports together, a halftime performance from a global superstar, a game with the top-watched team in the NFL and the potential of Taylor Swift to be present at the Chiefs game and you have must-see television and sports.
NFLX Price Action: Netflix stock closed up 0.75% to $917.87 on Thursday after hitting new all-time highs of $927 during the intraday. Netflix stock is up 96% year-to-date in 2024.
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