Every year, ten of the top teams in the National Basketball Association follow an annual tradition by playing each other on Christmas Day. This tradition has been followed since the league’s second season in 1947. However, the NBA should not be allowed to deprive their players from the holidays and quality family time in order to make money off revenue

Every Christmas Eve, five unlucky teams have to travel to play away from home on Christmas day. Many NBA players, as well as venue employees, have young kids and since the away team needs to fly in for their game the night before and play in the afternoon, they are unable to experience Christmas Eve or watch their kids open presents on Christmas morning. 

“If you ask any player in the league, we’d rather be home with our families, I think the people that even set the games up would rather be home with their family during this day. It’s not just a regular holiday. It’s definitely one of those days that you wish you could wake up in the morning with the kids and open presents,” Lebron James said in an interview before the 2010 Christmas game against the Miami Heat

Both athletes and arena personnel are missing important family time. The Association needs to recognize the holiday time for players of all religious faith. This past year, Hannakuh started on December 24th, the same day that the five away teams got on their flights. Now not only are players who celebrate Christmas missing quality time with their families, but so are players that celebrate Hannakah. This past December, five time NBA all-star John Wall got his first Christmas off since he started playing in 2010. 

“First Christmas without my mom, so that will be hard, but first Christmas with my son will be dope,” Wall told a reporter after it was announced that he wouldn’t be playing Christmas Day. Wall’s son Ace was born on December 6th of 2018, and got to spend his first memorable Christmas with his dad. 

Despite players not getting as much family time, revenue during the holidays skyrockets, considering tickets to see two of the top ranked teams compete are thoughtful and exciting Christmas Day or Eve gifts, and since people are on school and work holiday, they are more likely to turn on the television. In 2018, the NBA Christmas Day ratings were through the roof, having a multi year high on ABC and ESPN. According to Sports Media Watch, the Christmas Day games went up 15% in ratings and 14% in viewership from 2017, and the Lakers-Warriors game had 10.21 million viewers on ESPN and ABC combined. Viewership was up 105% from the previous years Rockets-Thunder game. Since ratings are higher around the holidays, the five Christmas Day games are shown at a variety of times, especially since people want to see the best teams in the league play each other. 

If ratings are so much higher on Christmas, the NBA won’t want to give up their athletes to a holiday. Instead of choosing the best teams to play each other and miss out on the whole day with their families, teams in the same area or state should play each other Christmas afternoon, and fly out in the late morning so they can wake up early and open presents with their kids or spend quality time with their families on Christmas Eve. Matchups could include the Brooklyn Nets playing the New York Knicks and the Los Angeles Lakers playing the Los Angeles Clippers. Although this means fewer teams playing on Christmas Day, it gives the athletes an advantage of more family time and less work time, and the NBA will get revenue from their precious ratings. 

Although it seems reasonable for teams in the same area to play each other on Christmas, viewers will argue that they want to see MVPs and championship bound teams play, as well as how it is hard to feel remorse for professional athletes who are very well compensated for their jobs. Besides NBA players who are making loads of money, doctors, nurses, policemen, and firemen also have to work on Christmas without the same pay as NBA players. 

Despite the high viewership and high pay, these players have spoken out about Christmas Day games, and are clearly disappointed about playing on Christmas, especially MVPs and high ranked teams, who play more often on Christmas due to viewers preferring more intense matchups. These players should not have to play distant teams on Christmas, and instead should get to spend Christmas Eve and morning with their families.