Thanksgiving week remains a critical window for streamers and sports rights-holders as CTV platforms become the primary battleground for visibility during one of the highest-viewership periods of the year. With services competing for space across major devices, securing strong placement proved essential to reaching audiences navigating increasingly crowded home screens.
This year’s activity showed how aggressively platforms leaned into merchandising, with live events, holiday entertainment and discount-led offers each using premium positions to capture attention. Across the NFL, NBA, UEFA Champions League, NHL, MLS, tentpole premieres and Black Friday campaigns, the week revealed how varied content strategies shaped which titles broke through.
Thanksgiving 2025: From NBA to NFL – Who Won Streaming? analyzes these dynamics through Media Placement Value (MPV™) and Dollar Media Placement Value ($MPV™), identifying the titles and promotions that achieved the greatest visibility and value across the holiday week.
Key Insights:
🏈 NFL Dominates the Week:
Chiefs-Cowboys and Packers-Lions secured some of the most valuable placements of the period, reinforcing the NFL’s role as the holiday’s most powerful visibility driver.
🏀 NBA Delivers Its Strongest Thanksgiving in Years:
With matchups averaging 2.19M viewers, the NBA posted its best holiday performance since 2018, supported by high-impact placements across Prime Video, Peacock and ESPN.
⚽ UEFA Expands Its U.S. Presence:
Champions League promotions maintained steady visibility on Roku, Samsung and Xumo, giving Paramount+ a meaningful holiday foothold for European football.
🏒 NHL Wins Through Clear, Time-Forward Creative:
Simple, urgency-led messaging and strong team branding helped NHL placements achieve top MPV™ scores across multiple devices.
⚽ MLS Finds Growth in a Focused Strategy:
Apple’s ecosystem played a defining role, but performance across devices revealed some unexpected dynamics in how value surfaced for the league.
🎬 Tentpoles Show a Shift in Holiday Discovery:
Major releases, such as Stranger Things Season 5, faced a visibility landscape where platform reach shaped results in ways that cut against traditional expectations.
From sports to seasonal releases, Thanksgiving week demonstrated how platform strategy and clarity of creative determine which campaigns win the screen. Download the report now to find out more.
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