Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR 550) - Get ready for a triple-header of football on Christmas Day this year.
Appearing on the "SalSports... and Stuff" podcast, National Football League Vice President of Broadcasting Mike North confirmed that the league will play the three games on Christmas Day this season, which falls on a Sunday.
The majority of the rest of that week’s schedule will be played on Christmas Eve, Saturday, Dec. 24.
“We will take the bulk of our games, the Sunday afternoon games on CBS and FOX, one o’clock and four o’clock [EST], we’ll move those to Saturday,” said North on the podcast. “So we’re going to play most of our games on Saturday, Dec. 24. We'll have our usual one o'clock window, six or eight, 10 games, whatever it is. We’ll have our usual four o’clock window, three, four, or five games there. We’ll play on Saturday night on the NFL Network on Christmas Eve, and then when we get to Sunday, Christmas Day, we’ll have a triple-header. We’ll play one game on CBS in the afternoon, one game on FOX in the afternoon, and our regular Sunday night game on NBC.
Whereas the National Basketball Association traditionally plays on Christmas Day, the NFL typically only does when it falls on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. The league has never played more than two games on one Christmas Day, including last year (Saturday), 2017 (Sunday), and 2016 (Monday).
“Christmas when it falls on an NFL game day, we've had a lot of success there, all due respect to our friends at the NBA,” North said. "But when we can play football on Christmas, it has proven to be something our fans are interested in. We had Minnesota [Vikings]-New Orleans [Saints] a couple years ago. That came to 20 million viewers. We had Cleveland [Browns]-Green Bay [Packers] last year, that game did 30 million viewers. It was followed by [Indianapolis Colts]-Arizona [Cardinals] on the NFL Network, that one performed well. Our fans are telling us that we know they watch on Thanksgiving. They're happy to watch on Christmas, too.”
North says the league will also play its usual Sunday slate the following week on New Year’s Day. The traditional New Year’s Day college bowl games will be moved to either Saturday, Dec. 31, which is New Year’s Eve, or to Monday, Jan. 2.
We know the league will also have three Thanksgiving Day games. One in the early afternoon, one in the late afternoon, and one in prime-time. So, conceivably, a team could play on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day this season.
That's exactly what happened to the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2016. They played in Indianapolis against the Colts on Thanksgiving night, then home against the Baltimore Ravens on Christmas Day and home against the Browns on New Year's Day. The Steelers won all three games.
The Bills have played two of the past three seasons on Thanksgiving: Winning in Dallas, 26-15, against the Cowboys in the late afternoon game in 2019, and then beating the Saints in New Orleans, 31-6, in the Thanksgiving night game this past season.
North made it clear they are a possibility to play on that day again.
“The Bills have been on Thanksgiving quite a bit recently,” he said. “They do play Detroit on the road, and somebody's got to go to Detroit on Thanksgiving. It could be Buffalo, it could be Miami [Dolphins], it could be a cross-flex where we take a FOX game and we make it Chicago [Bears] or Green Bay, or something like that. There are options, but Buffalo has got to be one of them.”
You can listen to the entirety of North's interview during the "SalSports... and Stuff" podcast in the player below:
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