The NFL is planning to take over Christmas. In two of the past three years, the league has scheduled a tripleheader for Dec. 25 and starting with 2025, that’s going to become a permanent part of the schedule. Yup, the Christmas tripleheader is likely here to stay.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell revealed that news during an interview on The Pat McAfee Show Friday.
“I think we will clearly have three games every year [on Christmas],” Goodell said.
The NFL was already planning to hold a tripleheader this year with the league announcing in March that Netflix and Amazon would be streaming the games. Since Christmas is on a Thursday in 2025, Amazon will be getting its standard Thursday night game while Netflix will be handling the other two games as part of a three-year deal that it signed with the NFL in 2024.
The NFL only played two games on Christmas last year when the holiday was on a Wednesday, so there was some question about whether the league would hold a doubleheader or a tripleheader when Dec. 25 falls on a Tuesday or Wednesday in the future, but Goodell has now answered that question.
Goodell also confirmed that the Chiefs did, in fact, request to become a permanent fixture on Christmas, but that likely won’t be happening. The commissioner said the NFL wants to be keep the ability to rotate teams for the holiday, so no one will be getting an annual game on Christmas.
“A lot of teams want to play on Christmas now because it’s a great platform, the Chiefs definitely do,” Goodell said. “Will we get back to where it’s a tradition, [where] you always have that game? I don’t think we’ll do that. I think we’ll continue to rotate it.”
NFL likely to tweak the Thanksgiving schedule
Goodell also made one more interesting announcement: The kickoff time for the early game on Thanksgiving will likely be changing. The Lions always host the early game and it generally kicks off at 12:30 p.m. ET, but starting with the 2025 season, the NFL will be moving the kickoff back to a later time.
“We’re probably going to move from a 12:30 p.m. ET start to 1,” Goodell said. “We’ll go back to the traditional windows.”
If the NFL ends up making the change, that means the Thanksgiving games will start at 1 p.m. ET (in Detroit), 4:30 p.m. ET (in Dallas) and 8:20 p.m. ET.
We’ll know for sure if the change is happening on May 14 when the NFL releases the 2025 schedule.
This news was originally published on this post .
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