The NFL made a concerted effort to place better matchups on Christmas Day. The league was promptly rewarded with monster ratings, raising the stakes on what it might do in future years on the holiday. 

After the NFL featured Super Bowl contenders in each of its three game windows on Monday, CBS Sports reported an average audience of 29.2 million viewers for the early afternoon matchup of the Kansas City Chiefs and Las Vegas Raiders. That total marks the most-watched Christmas Day game in 34 years, and it beats the comparable game last year by 29%.

ESPN, meanwhile, said its coverage of the primetime matchup between the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers on ABC and ESPN+ drew an average of 27.1 million, the second-most-watched Monday Night Football game in the last 27 years. That total trails only the 29 million garnered just five weeks earlier for a Chiefs-Philadelphia Eagles game that provided a rematch of Super Bowl LVII. 

Wednesday Football?

Mike North, the NFL’s vice president of broadcast planning, told Front Office Sports last week that Christmas games in 2024 were unlikely given that the holiday falls on a Wednesday, outside of the normal NFL schedule. But given that the Chiefs-Raiders viewership was the fifth-highest total of any NFL game this season, the league’s presence on the holiday has been significantly strengthened, expanding on its existing dominance of Thanksgiving—and raising the question of whether some type of exception might be made. 

Looking even further ahead: Christmas 2025 falls on a Thursday, and the holiday won’t again land on a Tuesday or Wednesday until 2029, opening up a rich new realm of programming possibilities for the NFL. 

“When the holidays fall on traditional NFL game days, maybe even sometimes non-traditional NFL game days, if the fans are interested, if the broadcast partners are interested, if it fits in our overall strategy … our fans have shown us that they will find us,” North said. 

Ratings have not yet been released for the late-afternoon NFL game on Christmas between the New York Giants and Eagles, shown on Fox, or for ESPN’s slate of five NBA games. Fox, however, did say on Wednesday that the network’s Dec. 24 coverage of the Dallas Cowboys-Miami Dolphins game drew an average of 31.5 million viewers, its best Sunday late-afternoon performance since 1995.

Sure, two big issues have been settled for the Baltimore Orioles, but a real big one is still festering.

Ownership concerns are again surfacing in problematic fashion for the Orioles, just days after the team completed a lease deal with Maryland officials for Oriole Park at Camden Yards—an agreement containing an earlier-than-expected escape clause for the team—and after a local media rights term with MASN was settled with minimal legal drama. 

The Angelos family, which has held the Orioles for 30 years, is at odds about what will happen to the franchise after patriarch Peter Angelos dies. The 94-year-old Angelos, who battled health issues in recent years, has made his wishes known: that after his death the team be sold, which would reduce capital gains taxes compared to a more immediate transaction. But John Angelos, Peter’s eldest son and the Orioles’ chair and CEO, is instead looking to maintain control of the team even after his father’s death, according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal.

“John Angelos has indicated privately that he intends to keep the club moving forward, potentially throwing the future of the franchise into turmoil,” Lindsey Adler and Jared Diamond reported for the Journal. 

The family division is tied to a pair of prior competing lawsuits that pitted John Angelos and his mother, Georgia, against John’s younger brother, Louis Angelos. Those legal actions were dropped in February, but the issue of if and when to sell the Orioles remains essentially unresolved. 

Suitor In Waiting

While John Angelos has reportedly told Maryland Gov. Wes Moore privately that the Orioles are not for sale, there have been no public statements to that effect, and more broadly, very few public comments at all from Angelos in recent years. That silence has helped give rise to a range of Orioles-related rumors (including talk of a potential team relocation) that have been quelled only slightly by the lease deal.

With that backdrop, Carlyle Group Inc. co-founder and Baltimore native David Rubenstein is reportedly in talks to acquire the team. A deal is not said to be imminent, but the billionaire’s interest speaks to the attraction the club has to prospective owners.  

The entire Orioles drama is also playing out as the team completed a 101-win, AL East-championship season in October, marking the club’s best campaign since 1979. 

An unlikely reunion appears to be in the works between the Minnesota Twins and Diamond Sports Group, and it could prove crucial to the short-term needs of both entities.

The Twins’ prior contract with the bankrupt parent of the Bally Sports regional sports networks ended with the conclusion of the 2023 season, and there has been no expectation of a new deal being struck. Club officials even talked openly about the likelihood of lowering player spending in 2024, in part because of the uncertain local media rights situation. 

But the Twins are now in active talks with Bally Sports North about returning next season, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, with the RSN said to have expressed “strong and sincere interest” in the club. 

Back From the Dead?

The revival of a rights relationship thought to be kaput would represent a financial lifeline for the Twins that is perhaps not available anywhere else. DSG paid the team $54.8 million in 2023 for its local broadcast rights, and while a 2024 deal is unlikely to match that number, other options, such as turning to MLB for the production and distribution of games, would introduce more changes for fans and more uncertainty for the club. 

For DSG, the potential Twins reunion is separate but thematically related to a larger deal the company has in development with 11 other MLB teams that are still contracted to Bally Sports. A bankruptcy court hearing on that issue is scheduled for Jan. 10. But DSG has also struck revised rights deals with the NBA and NHL in recent weeks in its bid to reorganize the company and create more certainty around its entire programming situation. 

Amazon is also reportedly considering buying into DSG, and Bally Sports having more team relationships in the immediate term would sweeten the pot for the streaming and online giant.