Traditionally, the NBA played five high-profile games on Christmas. When the ratings for the day’s games are released, the NFL will almost certainly have attracted more viewers.

You can bet that NBA stakeholders are well aware of this fact, so much so that one of them directly challenged the rival league in his post-game interview. After a thrilling Los Angeles Lakers win, noted football fan LeBron James told ABC’s broadcast team, “I love the NFL. I love the NFL, but Christmas is our day.”

James’ opinion is likely shared across the league, although perhaps without the necessary confidence.

One of the fun aspects of the American sports calendar is that each league claims a different holiday. The NFL has celebrated Thanksgiving for decades. The NBA has Christmas. It’s a New Year in college football and more recently in the NHL. MLB has July 4th.

However, since 2020, the NFL has hosted games on Christmas, achieving significant ratings wins over the NBA each year. To get four teams ready to play on a Wednesday this year, the league moved its previous week’s games to Saturday, taking advantage of an opening in the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 that allows them to play on Saturdays after the first week of December.

The players weren’t thrilled about playing three games in 11 days, but as usual, the NFL got what it wanted: two games played on Christmas Day were streamed on Netflix. Both games ended as smash hits, but early signs suggest the ratings will be impressive.

The NBA has no interest in celebrating Christmas with the NFL, but that’s obviously not the NBA’s fault. The NFL is almost a different industry at this point, immune to the decline in television ratings that the NBA, MLB and others are trying to adapt to. If it wants Christmas, it will play on Christmas and people will watch.

The only way the NBA can really respond is to put out a good product. The Christmas teams were largely committed this year, with the Lakers overcoming a game-winning 3-pointer from Stephen Curry with eight seconds left and securing the win on an Austin Reaves layup. James finished with 31 points and 10 assists.

Before that, the New York Knicks, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Philadelphia 76ers each won back and forth by single digits, in contrast to the losses in the NFL. The Kansas City Chiefs and Baltimore Ravens won by an average of 24 points.