NFL's Christmas games on Netflix drive historic audience

The NFL's foray into placing exclusive Christmas Day games on Netflix resulted in the the-most streamed television day in United States history.

Nielsen announced Friday that Dec. 25, 2024 was the first in the history of its measurement to top 50 billion viewing minutes (51.219), with streaming representing nearly half of total television consumption (49.5 percent) for the day.

Netflix led the way with its two exclusive NFL games. The first game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers generated 2.9781 billion viewing minutes, only to be topped later in the day when the Baltimore Ravens' victory over the Houston Texans drew 2.9783 billion.

That was nearly six times as many viewing minutes as the third most-streamed program for the day, with the movie "Red One" drawing 517.8 minutes, followed by 333.2 million for "Carry-On" on Netflix.

"This is a Christmas story of how all streamers are finding success balancing new and evergreen programming on streaming," Nielsen SVP of product strategy Brian Fuhrer said in a statement. "While live football was the highest profile and most-viewed, the diverse slate of original and classic shows and movies really resonated with audiences."

The NFL also had driven the previous most-streamed day in history with Amazon's exclusive rights to a wild-card game on Jan. 11.

Nielsen announced Monday that it Out-of-Home (OOH) measurement now covers 100 percent of the contiguous U.S. television population.