The NFL has scheduled a double header of games on Christmas Day, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced Tuesday.
Christmas Day falls on a Wednesday in 2024, and the league had said no matchups would be scheduled because games aren’t normally played on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. That was before the league saw the television ratings for the Christmas Day games last season.
The league’s triple-header of games in 2023 averaged 28.7 million viewers, a 29% increase compared to the three Christmas games in 2022. The three games ranked among the 10 highest-rated for the 2024 regular season, according to Wall Street Journal.
The league’s owners, always looking for new sources of revenue, shocked no one by announcing another slate of games for Christmas Day. Goodell said Wednesday games will not become a regularity.
“[Playing Wednesday] would not be a regular thing,” Goodell told reporters at the league’s winter meetings. “It will be when Christmas falls on a Wednesday.”
For the teams that will play on Christmas, it’s highly unlikely the players will be thrilled about playing on three days rest. The NFL will make sure that the teams scheduled to play on Christmas this season will have played the previous Saturday. That’s the same three-day period teams scheduled to play Thursday games receive.
Goodell noted the same three-day rest for Christmas Day and Thursday games while claiming injuries have not increased for Thursday games.
Goodell said Wednesday games will not be a regular occurrence, but if the games continue to draw a big numbers of viewers, no one would be surprised if Wednesday games become a regular occurrence in the future.