LeBron James insists Christmas Day is NBA day before the NFL

If you’re not the person who watched the Christmas game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Golden State Warriors – two mediocre teams trying in vain to convince everyone that they’re championship relevant – then you probably did Missed an interview with LeBron James after the game where he said something really ridiculous.

And wrong.

LeBron James is staying with the Lakers, just like everyone predicted. (Source: USA Today Sports Network)

LeBron considers Christmas an NBA holiday

“I love the NFL,” James said on the show. “I love the NFL. But it’s Christmas our Day.”

He said Christmas Day belongs to the NBA, not the NFL. So allow us to stop laughing for a moment before we write the next paragraph.

Still cackling…

Is the guy serious?

LeBron is 39 years old and isn’t great at getting his facts straight, but the NFL has been playing nationally televised games against NBA programs on Christmas Day for quite some time now.

The NBA’s first nationally televised Christmas game was in 1967 with the San Diego Rockets. But the longest game in NFL history is the nationally televised game between the Miami Dolphins and the Kansas City Chiefs – played on Christmas 1971.

Few people remember this, but the NFL delivered a one-two punch that Christmas Day as Dallas beat Minnesota in another divisional round game.

CINCINNATI, OH – OCTOBER 27 – A Philadelphia Eagles fan dressed as Santa Claus celebrates a win after a game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Cincinnati Bengals at Paycor Stadium on Sunday, October 27, 2024. (Photo by Jeff Moreland/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

NFL is now focused on Christmas

And recently, the NFL took a closer look at Christmas and decided to become more involved with the holiday. And by more engagement, we mean acquisition.

The league that took Sunday away from the church now wants to share Christmas with Santa Claus. It was a slow process. But it was unstoppable.

Before last year, the league said it would schedule regular-season games only on Christmas because Christmas fell on a Monday. And Monday is a day the league has played on for decades.

But Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s executive vice president of media sales, told the Wall Street Journal that the league would not play games on Christmas Day if the holiday fell on Tuesday or Wednesday. So the NBA would have a seemingly clear path to actually securing Christmas screenings on those days.

A Washington Commanders executive has been fired after making scathing comments about Jerry Jones and the NFL. (Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports)

NFL Christmas games will remain in place

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Christmas landing on Wednesday this year…

The league saw its ratings for 2023. In 2023, over 28 million watched NFL Christmas games.

And the NFL saw the potential to make more money. (The NFL loves money).

That’s why the league sold the rights to this year’s Christmas doubleheader to Netflix for around $150 million.

And all signs point to the NFL continuing to take the ratings and the money going forward — no matter what day Christmas falls.

“Christmas Day is Christmas Day, and you don’t wait for the day it is,” Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said last week on 105.3 The Fan. “We want to be there on Christmas Day.

“I think the future is, no matter what day it takes place, we will be there at Christmas.”

NFL ratings and money are driving the acquisition

The overnight ratings for Wednesday’s NBA and NFL games are not yet available. This year they might be harder to get since Netflix is ​​a streaming service and not a broadcaster. But at some point we will have raw data.

So now we have the choice:

Will we believe LeBron will dominate the NBA and Christmas belongs to this league?

Or do we believe in the NFL’s proven dominance in the ratings, which has included a recent exit from the College Football Playoff and dominance in all previous matchups against all other sports leagues?

Do we think the American public will continue to prefer professional football as a national game to professional basketball?

Do we believe logic and our eyes?

LeBron probably should have sat this one out.