The NFL’s war on Christmas is the programming nobody asked for

Christmas Day is just another chance to watch football. At least that’s what the NFL is hoping. On Tuesday the league announced during owners’ meetings that broadcasts on Christmas Day weren’t just continuing, but expanding.

This means we will have a Thanksgiving-like slate of games on Christmas Day, with a back-to-back-to-back triple-header, airing at 1 p.m, 4:30 p.m., and 8:20 p.m. In case that wasn’t annoying enough, two games will air on Netflix, and one on Amazon Prime — with no free, over-the-air way to watch games.

Outside of the NFL, Netflix, and Amazon — all of whom only care about the money printer going brrrrrrr is there anyone who actually wants this?

Here are the reasons I think Christmas NFL is just stupid, and unnecessary.

No. 1: It’s Christmas Day

This argument has nothing to do with religion or any kind of disrespect for the holiday. It’s more that NFL games on the holiday this just sucks both for those who celebrate Christmas, and those who don’t.

• If you spend time with family: It’s just another day where football gets in the way and if your team is playing you need to schedule around that. It’s basically just Thanksgiving 2.0, and takes away with that being the one day of the year you watch football with people you don’t normally do
• If you work, because you don’t care about the holiday but love double-time: Now there are NFL games you can’t watch that actually matter because we’ll be in the thick of the playoff hunt in late December.
• It sucks for players and coaches: There are quite literally dozens upon dozens of NFL players and coaches with children. Across three games this means over 300 families impacted by not having a player at home on the holiday. Whether they be religious or not, it impacts family time to cash in a few more bucks.

No. 2: Christmas is the NBA’s day, and it’s perfect

The beautiful thing about the NBA on Christmas is that it’s the perfect background viewing. You pop the games on, and it doesn’t really matter if you only half pay attention to them, because it’s still early in the basketball season, and one game of 82 doesn’t play a huge role.

I know that with my family we always have the games on in the background, and whether people nap in front of the TV, or only watch the final two minutes — it’s a conversation starter in a way football tends to suck people in too much.

No. 3: It’s okay to take a break from the NFL, and we’ve earned it

The NFL is hellbent on bombarding us with games at every corner. There’s nothing wrong with the Thursday, Sunday, Monday schedule — even if it is a little exhausting, but now we have Thursday, Sunday morning international games, Sunday afternoon, Sunday night, Monday, and then every single holiday which happens to fall between September and February.

You best believe the league is just biding its time before it goes against college football for viewership during bowl season, and that’s going to become even more pronounced when the league adopts an 18 game schedule.

We all love football. To be weird like us and write about it for a living you have to really love football, but I don’t want holiday football the same way I don’t want to eat a whole large pizza by myself every single night. And I’m a big guy, I love pizza.

No. 4: Not having a free way to watch absolutely sucks

If we’re having to watch football on Christmas then it should be available for everyone. The league has already worked out how to eek out every free dollar it can, but having it on two different streaming services absolutely blows.

For many of us we’re not at home on Christmas Day, but instead over at a family member’s house. Now you have to worry about your parents’ streaming setup, or your grandparents’ or whoever. The best case scenario is that you can log in and watch, but if they don’t have a smart TV or another means to stream content you’ll be huddled around your phone — and we all do enough of that already.

I agree, this sucks. What can I do?

Nothing. Look, I’d love to say “just don’t watch and they’ll get the picture,” but they won’t. Netflix and Amazon are paying millions for these games, and it’s not even about getting viewers. It’s about having anything on their platform their competitors don’t have.

So this is going to be the new normal. Football on Christmas Day is here, and it’s here to stay. Doesn’t mean I won’t be a Grinch about it.