Netflix broke a record with one of its Christmas Day NFL games this year. 25.7 million viewers tuned in for the livestream of the Minnesota Vikings-Detroit Lions game according to Nielsen, marking the most-streamed game in NFL history.
That number represents the average number of viewers tuned in at any given moment of the livestream, though the game’s most-watched moment reached more than 30 million viewers. When isolating the halftime show, “Snoop’s Holiday Halftime Party,” viewership averaged at 29 million.
The first game of the day, during which the Dallas Cowboys beat the Washington Commanders, viewership averaged at 19.9 million. Netflix has now been the distributor of all three of the all-time most-streamed NFL games.
While the above data from Nielsen refers to viewership in the U.S. alone, Netflix’s NFL games were available across the globe. The streamer reports that viewers from over 200 countries and territories tuned in to at least one of the games, with the Lions-Vikings game hitting an average minute audience of 30.5 million viewers worldwide and the Cowboys-Commanders game reaching 22.4 million.
The NFL games added to an already strong viewership day for Netflix, which also debuted Volume 2 of the fifth and final season of “Stranger Things” on Christmas Day. While exact an exact Christmas Day total wasn’t shared, the season was Netflix’s No. 1 most-watched title worldwide on Dec. 25 and achieved 34.5 million views throughout the week of Dec. 22-28.
Besides the games themselves, the NFL telecasts featured an extensive lineup of entertainment including some Netflix talent: Snoop Dogg brought out the singers behind Huntr/x, the fictional girl group from the animated film “KPop Demon Hunters.” Snoop was also joined by Lainey Wilson, and Martha Stewart introduced the show with a Snoop-themed parody of “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.” For the Cowboys-Commanders game, the halftime show was led by Sugarhill Gang.
More to come…