There’s a lot going on at Mina Kimes this week.

Like so many people this time of year, the ESPN’s “NFL Live” analyst was busy wrapping presents and preparing for the arrival of out-of-town guests for the holidays.

In addition to typical holiday activities, Kimes also must pause film production and attend a Christmas Eve rehearsal before her one-time gig as a studio analyst for the Kansas City Chiefs-Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens-Houston Texans streaming games on Live Christmas on Netflix.

“Yeah, it was pretty crazy,” Kimes said Monday during a phone interview. “I’m just excited. I usually just do one studio show during the week, which I absolutely love, but there’s a certain energy to doing TV right before kick-off and also during the game and afterwards. … For example, let’s see in real time what Joey Porter Jr. or George Pickens or any of the injured players look like, what their availability is, things like that.

“And that adds another element that I’m personally really excited about. But I just love talking about ball on TV and having the opportunity to do it in front of so many people is quite a Christmas present.”

The last sporting event to be streamed live on Netflix was a huge success – an estimated 108 million live viewers in around 65 million households worldwide tuned in on November 15 to watch the fight between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul – but it was also a disappointment for many Consumers’ major headache took to social media to complain about buffering issues and the complete loss of the feed.

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Netflix told The Times on Monday that it has learned from the difficulties it faced during the Tyson Paul livestream and has since optimized its systems to better handle live events. Kimes is confident that all of these issues will be resolved before the two NFL games, both of which will be crucial for AFC playoff berth and one of which (Ravens-Texans) will feature a Beyoncé halftime show.

“The technical aspect of it is above my pay grade, but everyone seems pretty confident,” she said. “Obviously there’s going to be a lot of exposure around these games, so I’m hoping that when we’re in everything, we’ll do it seamlessly, not just from a technical and streaming perspective, but also from a production perspective. And so far it looks like there are just a lot of experienced people working on it.”

Netflix’s first foray into NFL games will feature a ton of talent from various other platforms. Kimes will appear on the Los Angeles studio show alongside host Kay Adams (FanDuel TV) and fellow analysts Manti Te’o (NFL Network), Robert Griffin III (formerly ESPN) and Drew Brees (formerly NBC Sports). A studio show from Pittsburgh will feature Laura Rutledge (ESPN) as host and Devin McCourty (NBC Sports) and Jason McCourty (CBS Sports and ESPN) as analysts.

“It’s kind of like the Pro Bowl,” Kimes said. “That sounds pretentious, but I guess what I mean is that I get to work with a lot of people that I don’t normally work with, which is kind of cool. There are a lot of people from different areas.” Networks and that’s also something unique about this thing.

Read more:Netflix will stream the 2027 and 2031 FIFA Women’s World Cups

Here’s more from Kimes’ conversation with The Times.

(The questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.)

How did this all come about for you?

I can’t remember when I first heard about this possibility – a few months ago or so? But whenever my agent told me about it, I was really excited for a whole bunch of reasons. One of them was simply the opportunity to work on such hugely significant games, and of course ones that will attract a lot of attention. Really good games too, by the way – which is good for Netflix, but also great for me because it’s a lot more fun to talk about games like the ones we’ll be talking about at Christmas.

Was there any concern about doing this during the holidays? I know you have a small child at home…

Well, here’s the good news: He’s 14 months old, so I can just tell him Christmas is the next day and he won’t notice the difference. My family is actually coming over today and even if I wasn’t on the show, they would see it. They are big football fans. They’d have Netflix on all day anyway, so I think they’re almost as excited about the idea of ​​just sitting around and watching me all day, probably more so than if I spent time with them, because they see me in person often.

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So your studio show will run all day, before, during and after both games?

Yes, that’s why everyone watches halftime, right? To see our show. For example: “Come on, enough Beyoncé.” One song, let’s get back to it. I really need to hear this analysis.’

This has been a busy month for you after serving as a color commentator for “The Simpsons Funday Football“Alternative broadcast of the Cincinnati Bengals-Dallas Cowboys game on December 9th. How was the experience?

It was great. It was an absolute dream. I’m a crazy Simpsons fan and I think we realized early on – me, Drew (Carter) and Dan (Orlovsky) – that all we could get into was the Simpsons jokes and references. It seems like fans of the show really enjoyed this.

They have made numerous appearances on ESPN’s “Around the Horn.” How did you react when you found out the show was coming to an end next year?

This show has meant so much to my career. That’s how I actually got into television at ESPN. I don’t think I would be doing what I’m doing now without Around the Horn. … It really made me think about what role the show has played (in) my career. I’ll miss it a lot because I’m an NFL analyst now, but for me it was one of those platforms where you could talk about other sports and topics and I always really, really enjoyed it. It’s a special show.

Read more:ESPN will pull the plug on “Around the Horn” next year after more than two decades on the air

What are your predictions for the Christmas games?

It’s boring – I won both favorites, the Ravens and the Chiefs. The Steelers’ defensive injuries are very concerning.

How about a Beyoncé prediction? Do you think there are any special guests who could join her?

I think you might see a special guest from Houston. I don’t know who it will be, but I’m assuming people will wish it took twice as long instead of having to listen to me talk.

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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.