Former NBA player-turned-analyst Charles Barkley is not happy with the NFL playing games on Christmas Day. He has made this quite clear by talking about the "pigs" in the rival league.
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ESPN kicked off its Christmas Day coverage of NBA games with "Inside the NBA." Barkley, Shaquille O'Neal, Kenny Smith, and Ernie Johnson talked about the biggest matchups and pulled pranks on each other. It was during this show that Barkley made his comments about the NFL encroaching on the NBA's territory.
"There's five games," Barkley said. "There's nobody else playing. The NFL got greedy and started adding Christmas games. We used to have this day to ourselves, but you know (NFL Commissioner) Roger Goodell and them pigs at the NFL always want to hog every day of the week now.
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"...I saw those guys yesterday on ESPN talk about it, and they are right. Christmas is an NBA day! That is it. ...Roger Goodell trying to hog every day of the week. Saturday night too. Oh, Friday too."
As Johnson noted while steering conversation in a different direction, 2025 marked the 78th edition of the NBA games taking place on Christmas Day. This takes the tradition back to 1947.
The NFL, for comparison, had primarily spent its years competing on Sunday afternoons and Monday nights. The league then began expanding whenever possible. It moved to Thursday nights and added in some Saturday games late in the season when college football had mostly ended.
The NFL has even started playing games on Fridays. It began adding Friday night games in Brazil to kick off the season. The league also added in Black Friday games to continue owning the Thanksgiving week.
The only days not currently featuring NFL action are Tuesday and Wednesday. That doesn't mean the league won't try to find a way to play on those days in future seasons. Barkley just will not be happy about it, which he made quite clear on Christmas Day.
