Netflix and Amazon attracted large audiences on Christmas Day, thanks to the NFL.
The most-watched game of the holiday turned out to be the mid-afternoon Lions-Vikings game on Netflix, which attracted 27.5 million U.S. viewers live and same-day, according to Nielsen Big Data + Panel. This includes out-of-home viewing, local market viewing of CBS, NFL+, and mobile and web viewing on Netflix.
That’s roughly comparable to, and actually slightly better than, the streamer’s Ravens-Texans telecast last year. Nielsen also says the U.S. audience for this year’s game peaked at just over 30 million viewers.
Globally, Netflix claims that, based on proprietary data, Lions-Vikings garnered an average minute audience of 30.5 million on Live+1.
There was no Beyoncé Bowl this year, but there was Snoop’s Holiday Halftime Party. Snoop Dogg’s performance attracted an average of 29 million viewers in the United States, according to Nielsen.
Earlier in the day, the Cowboys-Commanders game averaged 19.9 million viewers in the United States, according to Nielsen. Netflix adds that the average global L+1 audience per minute for this game was approximately 22.4 million. It was a slightly slower start to the day than last year, when more than 25 million American viewers tuned in to watch Chiefs-Steelers kickoff.
While there were only two games last year, both hosted by Netflix, the NFL had a third primetime game this year, which went to Prime Video. .
Amazon won the Chiefs this year, although this time the team suffered a disappointing loss to the Denver Broncos, watched by 21.06 million U.S. viewers, according to Nielsen.
This puts it in second place among Christmas Day matches, but it’s actually the most watched. Thursday Night Football regular season game ever seen for Prime Video, eclipsing the previous record, the Cowboys-Lions game earlier in the month, by about 2 million viewers.
The Broncos-Chiefs also attracted a record audience peak for TNF on Prime still with 22.9 million viewers at the top of the 9 p.m. ET hour.
Like last year, these three matchups had a slightly lower U.S. audience than the usual audience the NFL has drawn in past years on Christmas Day. In 2023, a Chiefs-Raiders game became the most-watched regular season game of all time on Christmas Day with 29.2 million viewers. The Eagles-Giants also won 29 million that day, while the 49ers-Ravens managed 27.1 million.
What makes the difference is usually Netflix’s global audience, which helps the streamer attract a few million more viewers. While this helped close the gap between Lions and Vikings, increasing it just above those totals, it didn’t do much for Cowboys-Commanders, where U.S. viewership dropped significantly.
For Netflix, this was the second year of a three-year deal with the NFL to stream NFL football games on Christmas Day. As part of the deal, the streamer gets at least one game every year. Christmas falls on a Friday rather than a Thursday in 2026, so Prime Video is unlikely to host again. However, it remains unclear whether this means a game will default back to streaming or find a place on another streamer.
