The Eagles-Cowboys NFC East showdown lured in the most viewers for a Christmas Eve game in at least two decades, and Christmas Day wasn’t too shabby for the NFL, either. 

For the last 75 years, Christmas Day has been an NBA tradition. But the NFL scheduled a triple-header on the holiday and dominated the ratings on Sunday.

In total, the three NFL Christmas Day broadcasts averaged 22.9 million viewers, an increase of 14.5% from last year’s doubleheader. The NBA’s five-game Christmas Day broadcasts on ABC and ESPN averaged 4.27 million viewers, a 5% bump from last year. 

Fox’s Christmas Day broadcast of the Packers’ victory over the Dolphins averaged 25.9 million viewers, which makes it the second-most watched Dec. 25th game since at least 2000, according to Sports Media Watch. 

The NFL had two other games on Christmas Day:  

• Broncos-Rams on CBS and Nickelodeon averaged 22.6 million viewers combined.
• Buccaneers-Cardinals on NBC averaged 17.1 million viewers.

Holiday Feast

The NFL averaged 44.1 million viewers on Thanksgiving Day, which grew 31% from the initial numbers released as out-of-home viewing were revised after a Nielsen-NFL study. Nielsen began estimating out-of-home viewing in 2020. 

An estimated 27.8 million viewers watched the Cowboy’s win over the Giants on Fox, a 15% improvement over the same Christmas Eve window in 2021. NFL Network’s Raiders-Steelers primetime broadcast on Saturday averaged 10.94 million viewers.

Atlanta, which hosts Saturday’s Peach Bowl, has quietly become hugely important to the college sports world.

This year the Big Peach is hosting the College Football Playoff semifinal, between top-seeded Georgia, based in nearby Athens, and Ohio State. 

• In 2025, it will become the first repeat host of the CFP Championship, after hosting the final of the 2017 season. Georgia lost that game, but won last year’s championship in Indianapolis.
• Peach Bowl organizers estimate that the event and Chick-fil-A Kickoff games have brought in $80 million in tax revenue from 1999 to 2021.
• The Peach Bowl began in 1968 and moved to the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium in 2018. The $1.8 billion venue was the site of Super Bowl LIII in 2019.

The College Football Hall of Fame has also moved to Atlanta from South Bend, Indiana.

Sports Smorgasbord

Atlanta is one of a handful of cities to have an NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS, and WNBA team. 

It will be one of 16 North American host cities for the 2026 World Cup. 

The city is a contender to add an NWSL team in 2024, when the league is expected to add two new teams. Salt Lake City is likely to regain a team, after losing one the Utah Royals in 2020. Austin, Cincinnati, and Toronto are also thought to be interested.

U.S. mobile sports betting has reached $80 billion in wagers for 2022 so far, with the record number set to increase as more states give their final figures.

According to a report from Variety Intelligence Platform, there was $73.3 billion wagered using online sportsbooks between January and October — a 98% increase from the same period last year, a 569% increase from 2020, and a 2,268% increase from 2019.

• November saw $6.3 billion wagered, though the number is incomplete as not all states had their totals at the time of the report. 
• November’s total is already larger than June, July, and August. 

Five states — including New York — launched online sports betting in 2022. New York had the highest amount wagered in 2022 at $13 billion, surpassing New Jersey’s $8.1 billion. 

At the time of the report, placing an online bet at a sporting event was legal in 25 states and the District of Columbia. More states, including Massachusetts and Ohio, are expected to legalize mobile gaming next year, helping boost the total amount wagered for next year.

Viewership Trends

The report found “a clear link” between bets and engagement, with sports wagering peaking during the NFL season — 67% of those 18 years or older betting on an NFL game were more likely to report increased viewership.

As Microsoft fights to complete its purchase of Activision Blizzard, it is shedding light on the gaming industry as a whole.

The tech giant filed a response to the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit seeking to block the $68.7 billion merger, arguing that Microsoft currently has a minimal presence in the mobile gaming market, and that blocking the transaction would be unconstitutional.

• Microsoft said that its Xbox consoles accounted for 16% of that market in 2021, with Nintendo (50%) and PlayStation (34%) covering the rest.
• The company said it held a mere 0.3% of the mobile gaming market by 2021 revenue, with Activision Blizzard holding 4%.
• The company added that it wants to make Activision’s games available on more platforms, including Nintendo and Xbox Game Pass.

“A substantial portion of Activision’s financial value to Xbox comes from business as usual, including the continued sale of ‘Call of Duty’ — its most popular game — on Sony PlayStation,” Microsoft wrote. 

“Paying $68.7 billion for Activision makes no financial sense if that revenue stream goes away. Nor would it make sense to degrade the game experience and alienate the millions of ‘Call of Duty’ players who play together using different types of consoles.”

State of the Union

On Tuesday, Boston-based Proletariat became the third Activision company to unionize, joining the Communications Workers of America. Blizzard Entertainment acquired the 57-employee maker of “Spellbreak” in July.

Raven Software unionized in January, following Blizzard Albany, which did so the previous month.