LeBron James admits NFL owned NBA on Christmas Day
LeBron James has now conceded that Christmas Day no longer belongs to the NBA and is now a day for NFL action.
For years, the NFL avoided playing games on Christmas Day. The holiday is strongly associated with basketball and the NBA always schedules marquee matchups for Dec. 25.
However, since 2020, the NFL has held at least one game during the holiday. This year, as part of its new deal, two games were streamed live on Netflix. Beyoncé also performed at one of the halftime shows.
It certainly felt like the NFL was trying to ruin the NBA’s Christmas, but the football games were blowouts and underwhelming, while the NBA had some great matchups that went down to the wire.
The Lakers versus Warriors matchup was one of the Christmas Day games and it was a sensational contest, with Los Angeles winning 115-113.
The game wasn’t just a win for the Lakers, it felt like a victory for the NBA and its fans. The NBA Christmas Day games seemed far more entertaining than the NFL ones and this caused LeBron James to claim that Christmas still belonged to the NBA during his postgame comments.
When the ratings came out, the NBA did very well. The league averaged 5.2 million viewers across their five games on Christmas, the most on the holiday in five years. However, the NFL still dominated the ratings war with 24.2 million viewers between their two NFL games on Christmas.
On a recent “New Heights” podcast episode,” LeBron appeared as a guest and was asked which league owns Christmas. Unfortunately for the NBA, LeBron admitted that the NFL got the better of the NBA on Christmas Day.
“I saw the f---ing numbers after the fact. You guys kicked our a--, alright. Okay. From a viewership standpoint y’all kicked our a--... You know, when you go out there, you got your little brother and he might get beat up one time. You’re like, ‘Hey, we didn’t lose that fight. We here.’ That’s how I felt. I had to stand up for the NBA.”
The numbers are the numbers. If we consider television ratings and streams alone, then yes, the NFL won.
However, to counter LeBron’s comments, the NBA didn’t necessarily lose. They had their best Christmas Day viewership in over five years and the comments afterward were positive since all the games were entertaining.
On Christmas Day, the NFL certainly outperformed the NBA and it didn’t matter if the football games were less entertaining.
I’m not sure if that’s a credit to the NFL or just an inevitability because fans love football that much. Still, the NFL earned the ratings win. They went all in on Christmas, partnering with Netflix and bringing out Beyoncé and they found success on a day known for NBA action.
LeBron conceding that the NFL won the Christmas Day battle certainly stings, but it’s also what we already knew.
With the NFL still contractually obligated to play Christmas Day games on Netflix for two more years, let’s see what the NBA does to respond and take the day back in 2025 and beyond.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88.