For years, the NFL avoided playing games on Christmas Day. The holiday is heavily associated with basketball and the NBA always schedules big matches for December 25th.

However, since 2020, the NFL has hosted at least one game during the holiday season. This year, two games were streamed live on Netflix as part of the new deal. Beyoncé also performed at one of the halftime shows.

It definitely felt like the NFL was trying to ruin the NBA’s Christmas, but the football games were disastrous and disappointing while the NBA had some great matches that went right to the finish.

The Lakers-Warriors game was one of the Christmas Day games and it was a sensational contest with Los Angeles winning 115-113.

Not only was the game a win for the Lakers, it also felt like a win for the NBA and its fans. The NBA Christmas games seemed to be far more entertaining than the NFL games and this led LeBron James to claim in his post-game comments that Christmas still belongs to the NBA.

When the ratings came out, the NBA did very well. The league averaged 5.2 million viewers for its five Christmas games, the most on the holiday in five years. However, the NFL still dominated the ratings battle with 24.2 million viewers between its two NFL games on Christmas.

On a recent “New Heights” podcast episode, LeBron appeared as a guest and was asked which league Christmas belongs to. Unfortunately for the NBA, LeBron admitted that the NFL beat the NBA on Christmas Day.

“I saw the damn numbers after the fact. You kicked our asses, okay. OK. As far as viewership goes, you’ve driven us all crazy… You know, when you go out, you’ve got your little brother and he might get beaten up once. You say, ‘Hey, we didn’t lose this fight.’ That’s how I felt. I had to commit to the NBA.”

The numbers are the numbers. If we only consider TV ratings and streams, the NFL won.

To counter LeBron’s comments, the NBA didn’t necessarily lose, however. They had their best Christmas Day attendance in over five years and the comments afterwards were positive as all the games were entertaining.

The NFL was certainly better than the NBA on Christmas Day, and it didn’t matter if the football games were less entertaining.

I’m not sure if that’s a credit to the NFL or just an inevitability because fans love football so much. Nevertheless, the NFL deserved the ratings victory. At Christmas they went all out, partnering with Netflix and releasing Beyoncé, and they found success on a day known for NBA action.

LeBron’s admission that the NFL won the Christmas battle certainly stings, but it’s also what we already knew.

With the NFL still contractually obligated to play Christmas games on Netflix for two more years, let’s see what the NBA does to respond and make up for the day in 2025 and beyond.

You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88.