NFL to open bidding war for Christmas Day game doubleheader

The NFL is planning to open the bidding for its Christmas Day doubleheader, which will be on a Wednesday in 2024. The starting bid for the big network to show just one of those two games could be at least $50 million, according to Front Office Sports‘ Michael McCarthy, though the final price tag could be much higher.

Bidding for these coveted Christmas Day games will be the NFL’s top media partners, including CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN-ABC, and Amazon Prime Video. These networks/platforms are already set to pay the league roughly $110 billion within the next decade.

FOS’s sources claim the Christmas Day games are more likely to appear on one of the major networks versus a streaming platform. If the rights to the games go to the highest bidder, they could go to any one of the platforms, however, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has previously stated he prefers to keep major games, like the Super Bowl, more accessible.

FOS spoke to John Kosner, a former ESPN executive, who said he thinks the new Christmas Day games could sell for $75 million to $100 million apiece.

“The premium prices have come for exclusive streaming rights to NFL playoff games,” Kosner says. “NFL Christmas Day/night games have huge and growing audiences—but they are regular-season games scheduled seven months in advance. And traditionally the ad market for Christmas Day is not as robust.”

The four teams that are playing in the games on Wednesday will also be part of a doubleheader the previous Saturday. According to Front Office Sports, the Christmas Day NFL games in 2023 were a huge success.

The matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Las Vegas Raiders drew an audience of 29.2 million viewers, the most-watched Christmas Day game in 34 years. The Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers game that aired on Christmas night drew 27.1 million viewers, making it the second-most watched Monday Night Football game in 27 years.

Amazon willing to pay between $120-$150 million for NFL postseason game

The days of having every NFL playoff game broadcasting on cable are over. Peacock started the movement but it’s only just beginning as other streaming platforms place their bids to feature their own marquee event in the NFL postseason.

Initial reporting revealed that Amazon Prime Video is willing to pay $120 million to stream one NFL Wild Card game in 2025. That figure is reportedly closer to $150 million, according to a source cited by CNBC’s Alex Sherman on Last Call. If it is $150 million, then Prime is paying up to 30% more than Peacock paid to stream their game, the wild card game between the Chiefs and Dolphins, in January.

Though Amazon has the more expensive platform to access ($14.99 versus $5.99), it does have more subscribers than its rival. Peacock, which launched in July 2020 and reported 31 million subscribers at the end of 2023, Amazon has an estimated 180 million in the U.S. alone. In the future, Apple or Netflix could jump on the NFL postseason train, but there are only so many games to go around.

Amazon also currently owns the rights to “Thursday Night Football” as part of an 11-year deal worth $1 billion annually. The streaming service averaged 11.86 million viewers per game during the 2023 season. That marked an increase of +24% over the previous season (vs. 9.58 million), according to a January press release.

On3’s Brian Jones contributed to this report.