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We’ve talked about it before how Christmas has been the NBA’s holiday and there are still five NBA games on Christmas day, but this year they have some competition. This year the NBA has to go up against the NFL which has three games schedule for Christmas day.

The NBA gets the jump on the NFL with their first game starting an hour before the NFL kicks off its first game. The NBA opens with the New York Knicks hosting the Philadelphia 76ers while the first NFL game of the day has the Green Bay Packers at the Miami Dolphins.

What I’m interested to know is once the NFL game starts which game are you going to watch? As you know I’m not a huge NBA fan, so I’ll switch over to the NFL game.

Now you would think that fans of the Knicks and the 76ers will stay with the basketball game, but what will the other casual sports fans do. The NFL is always the highest rated of the four major sports, so will the audience switch over once the football game starts or does the NBA have a chance to hold onto some viewers?

The Packers/Dolphins game will also go up against the NBA’s second game of the day which has the Los Angeles Lakers at the Dallas Mavericks. What’s interesting here is the fact that the Lakers are considered a premier NBA franchise while the Mavericks feature MVP candidate Luka Doncic. Could this matchup be good enough to bring back any fans that may have turned away for the football game?

There will also be some overlap between the second NBA game and the NFL’s second game. In the second NFL game the Denver Broncos are at the Los Angeles Rams. In this case it will be two Los Angeles teams head-to-head on television, but you could argue that the Lakers are more popular than the Rams.

This isn’t a great matchup for the NFL as each team is coming into this game with a 4-10 record and there’s really nothing on the line for either team. Will casual fans stay with the basketball game over a football game featuring two 4-10 teams?

The Broncos/ Rams game will also have to go up against what would be considered the NBA’s marquee matchup of the day the Boston Celtics hosting the Milwaukee Bucks. These games going against each other will be a true test of the NFL’s ratings power. If two 4-10 teams can draw better ratings than the NBA’s two best Eastern conference teams that would be saying something.

The NFL’s third and final game starts just about the same time as the NBA’s fourth game of the day. The NFL has the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at the Arizona Cardinals while the NBA has the Memphis Grizzlies at the Golden State Warriors.

This is another interesting matchup as while the Buccaneers are 6-8 on the season, they’re a 1st place team and of course Tom Brady is their quarterback. The NBA does have some star power in their matchup as well with Ja Morant and Stephen Curry being on the court.

The Buccaneers/Cardinals game will also go up against the NBA’s final Christmas day game which has the Denver Nuggets hosting the Phoenix Suns.

The Nuggets and the Suns are both good teams, but I’m not sure they have the drawing power to beat out an NFL game even if it’s another game with teams that have losing records.

Well, there it is your Christmas day all laid out for you. Now you tell me what you’re going to be watching? It’s totally acceptable to flip back and forth between games, but let me know which games you’d favor and why.

Don’t forget to look me up on Twitter, I’m @Burketime