NFL forces the issue with massive decision to broadcast multiple games on Christmas Day
The NFL never sleeps. It's a year-round entity that has found a way to always stay in the headlines. It already owns Sundays (figuratively, of course) and Thursday nights are becoming more and more popular. The league decided to broadcast the first non-holiday Friday night game since 1986, a move they hope can help them claim […]
The NFL never sleeps. It's a year-round entity that has found a way to always stay in the headlines.
It already owns Sundays (figuratively, of course) and Thursday nights are becoming more and more popular. The league decided to broadcast the first non-holiday Friday night game since 1986, a move they hope can help them claim even more of the weekend spotlight, while seeing if it's a viable, permanent practice for the future.
And now, Wednesday is on the league's list of "What's Next To Conquer", as Roger Goodell and co. decided to broadcast not one, but two games on Christmas Day in 2024.
Which, again, is on a Wednesday.
"Football's great and I enjoy watching it on the holidays… [and] this is pretty significant," NFL Network's Ian Rapoport said on The Insiders. "I think this is an expansion into what used to be the NBA territory, which it's clearly not anymore. … They're playing on a Friday, this year for the first time in forever. This is basically the NFL saying that they're going to put more on more days and you're probably going to watch and you know what, we are going to watch it because more people like football than ever."
This is extremely forced and honestly, pretty unnecessary. I feel bad for the unlucky teams that will have to navigate their schedule over the couple of weeks associated with playing on a Wednesday. The NFL isn't going to make a team play a game less than 72 hours after the end of another game – but how will the bye weeks work? If a team enters their bye the week of December 9 – that means said team would get an extra three days rest before playing on Christmas Day. This doesn't even include the fact that Christmas is right in the middle of the playoff race – adding something like this, at that time, only ramps up the pressure. And not in a good way.
Update: ESPN's Adam Schefter later reported that the teams scheduled to play on Christmas will play on the prior Saturday – the league sees it as the equivalent to playing on a Sunday and then a Thursday.
But even beyond that – it comes off as greedy. The NFL is doing just fine, it doesn't need to conquer a midweek holiday. And player safety, again, is involved. This is late in the season when guys are tired and worn down. Not only does this make the travel and preparation difficult – it's tough on their bodies, as well.
It's yet another example of how the NFL operates on its own time and it'll be damned if anyone gets in the way. It's the league's world and we're just living in it.
