Could Taylor Swift perform on Christmas Day before headlining a Super Bowl stage? It might just be a goal for Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos.
During an interview with Variety, Sarandos, 60, expressed his excitement about the challenge presented by Swift taking on a performance in 2025. He mentioned that they managed to bring her to the stadium earlier this year.
In December 2024, Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce, was in a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers with the Kansas City Chiefs. However, despite Sarandos’ comment, it was widely known that Swift was not present at the game, which was aired on Netflix. (The Chiefs emerged victorious with a score of 29-10.)
While the Christmas game is scheduled to air on Netflix once more this year, Sarandos remains optimistic about the possibility of streaming services securing a bid for the Super Bowl in the future.
“It’s a tough economic model to thread for them. They get so much money from the networks,” he admitted. “But in general, with the [November 2024] Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight, we were supporting a Super Bowl-sized audience. We can certainly support it technically.”
He’s not sure, however, if exponential live content growth is in the cards.
“Right now, we have WWE live weekly. We have Christmas Day football live. We’ve got the SAG Awards annually,” Sarandos said. “We’ll have a few more we will pepper in annually. It will be a small part of total viewing, proportionally to budget, but they should all punch above their weight.”
Last year’s Christmas Day broadcast featured a live show from Beyoncé in her native Texas as the Houston Texans played the Baltimore Ravens. Dubbed the “Christmas Game Day Beyoncé Bowl,” the performance included tons of special guests as she sang tunes from Cowboy Carter for the first time since it was released in March 2024.
Beyoncé sang “Riiverdance” with Shaboozey, “Levii’s Jeans” with Post Malone, her version of “Jolene” and, of course, “Texas Hold ‘Em,” which featured her 12-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy, as one of the backup dancers. (Beyoncé shares Blue Ivy along with 6-year-old twins Rumi and Sir with husband Jay-Z.)
“It’s only right that we do ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’ for the first time in Houston, Texas on Christmas,” the singer said before concluding her show-stopping performance. “Merry Christmas, God bless y’all.”
Netflix’s Christmas Day streams — thanks to Beyoncé’s performance — reportedly brought in more viewers for the Texans vs. Ravens game than the other two matchups broadcast on the holiday. Viewership peaked with a total of 27 million viewers at the time.
