The NFL is giving fans a rare treat this weekend with games on Saturday for the first time in the 2024 season. For the next three Saturdays, the NFL will host at least two games (Week 17 has a tripleheader) — the first time the league has played on three consecutive Saturdays in consecutive years since 2005 and 2006 (the league played on three straight Saturdays last year).
In recent years, the NFL has held a Saturday tripleheader in December and a Saturday doubleheader in Week 18. This is part of the league’s current television agreement, which calls for a Saturday tripleheader with NFL Network and a flex Saturday doubleheader in Week 18 on ESPN/ABC having matchups with playoff implications.
So what is with the change from two Saturdays to three? The NFL has decided to play games on Christmas for the fifth consecutive season, but there is a catch with the holiday this year. Christmas falls on a Wednesday and the NFL has typically shied away from playing games on a Wednesday, until the league landed a $150 million deal from Netflix to broadcast Christmas games this year. Netflix and the NFL also reached an agreement to broadcast Christmas games in each of the next three seasons.
Under the terms of the Netflix deal, the NFL will have two games on Christmas this season and “at least” one Christmas Day game in 2025 and 2026 (Christmas falls on Thursday in 2025 and Friday in 2026 in those years). How will the league handle these Christmas Day games on a Wednesday, a day typically absent on the NFL calendar and falls in the middle of the week?
Here’s where the Saturday games come into play. The four teams that will play on Christmas (Kansas City Chiefs, Pittsburgh Steelers, Houston Texans, Baltimore Ravens) will all play on Saturday to have the same turnaround as these teams would have from a Sunday afternoon game to a Thursday night game — three days between games.
“Well, I think the days are the same for us. We’ve done this,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said of the four-day window back at the NFL Owners’ Meetings in March. “In fact, COVID was a learning opportunity. I think it was the first time we played on a Wednesday. … The time period between games has been done before.”
The NFL won’t have to worry about this Christmas issue in future years of the Netflix deal, since Christmas doesn’t fall on a Wednesday. The Saturday games will be on simultaneously as the first round as the College Football Playoff, but the schedule of those games were announced long before the NFL decided to play on Saturday, Dec. 21.
When the College Football Playoff announced the expansion of four teams to 12 in 2022, the first-round slate of games were always scheduled to end the week of Saturday, Dec. 21. The NFL crashed the party when it decided to schedule games on Christmas this year, something the league previously said it would not do.
Saturday is going to be a massive day for football. Here is the full Saturday slate of NFL and College Football Playoff games:
Saturday football schedule
|
College Football Playoff |
(11) SMU at (6) Penn State |
12 p.m. ET (TNT/Max) |
|
NFL |
Houston Texans at Kansas City Chiefs |
1 p.m. ET (NBC/Peacock) |
|
College Football Playoff |
(12) Clemson at (5) Texas |
4 p.m. ET (TNT/Max) |
|
NFL |
Pittsburgh Steelers at Baltimore Ravens |
4:30 p.m. (Fox) |
|
College Football Playoff |
(9) Tennessee at (8) Ohio State |
8 p.m. ET (ESPN/ABC) |
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