As the streaming giant noted on social media when it made the announcement, you can’t spell Netflix without NFL. The world’s largest streaming service is now an official game distributor for the top sports league in the United States after it was confirmed on Wednesday that Netflix would offer Christmas Day NFL games in each of the next three seasons, marking the largest investment by the streamer in live sports in its history. The deal is a massive step for Netflix and the NFL alike, considering the conservative approach to sports streaming taken by both companies thus far. That caution is one of the biggest reasons that it took so long for the two sides to team up, as both Netflix and the NFL had to wait for the fall of cable to see the value in partnering for live games.

Key Details:

• The NFL is still breaking records with Super Bowl broadcasts, pointing to its reluctance to fully embrace streaming as a medium.
• Cable’s dominance as a sports distributor left Netflix hesitant to spend big on live sporting events until recently.
• Netflix’s patience in pursuing live sports leaves it well-positioned to go after more sports in the future.

NFL streaming has come a long way since the days when the league allowed customers to watch games on Yahoo. Peacock, Paramount+, Prime Video, and ESPN+ have been important streaming partners for the league for years, and it now offers an in-house service (NFL+) that allows viewers to watch all in-market nationally-broadcast games on their mobile devices.

For all the build-up of the NFL’s presence on subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services in the past few years, the league has not even been discussed in the same sentence as Netflix with much regularity until the past week. Netflix does carry the NFL documentary series “Quarterback,” and will roll out the new show “Receiver” later this year, there has never been a live game distribution deal between the two sides until now.

Worth the Wait?

From the NFL’s perspective, the reason it has not made any streaming deals for live games with Netflix yet is simple: it’s been making too much money from linear broadcasters. The media deal signed by the NFL with its various broadcast and streaming partners in 2021 pays it $10 billion per season, and it saw its latest Super Bowl become the largest telecast in the history of the United States, with 123.4 million viewers tuning in across all platforms. Super Bowl LVIII was simulcast on Paramount+, but 120 million people out of its audience tuned in to see the Big Game on CBS.

NFL broadcasts accounted for 93 of the top 100 most-watched programs on television in 2023, and with dominance of that kind it’s easy to see why the league has been so reluctant to fully embrace any other distribution methods.

But recently, the NFL’s popularity as a streaming product has skyrocketed. A recent survey found that watching NFL games on streaming services was more popular among fans than watching any other sport on any medium, with the exception of watching NFL games on linear channels.

Ratings are also helping to assuage the league’s fears that it won’t attract a large enough audience to make streaming games worthwhile for the advertisers who ultimately pay for the product. The NFL first took a risk on regular streaming-exclusive games in 2022, when it allowed Prime Video to take over exclusive national broadcasts of “Thursday Night Football.” The relationship started off a bit rocky, as Prime Video drew 41% fewer viewers to “TNF” than the games saw in 2021 when they were also available on linear channels. But in 2023, ratings on Prime Video rose 24%, and games averaged more than 11 million viewers apiece.

Despite that improvement, the 2023-24 season saw the biggest streaming gamble yet by the NFL. The league decided to offer a streaming exclusive playoff game for the first time, and its Jan. 13 Wild Card matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins drew 23 million viewers — results the NFL said it was “thrilled” with. After seeing tangible proof that streaming can finally deliver audiences similar to those found on linear TV, the NFL can now feel comfortable sending games to Netflix without having to worry about substantially losing viewers. And given that Netflix has nearly 83 million customers in the United States and Canada, it should have a much easier time generating viewership than the much-smaller Peacock.

On Netflix’s side, the reluctance stemmed from an unwillingness to chase what its leadership team saw as unnecessarily expensive and risky content. In 2021, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said that he wouldn’t rule out sports deals, but that he thought there were better uses for the company’s money.

“Our fundamental product is on-demand and advertising-free, while sports is live and packed with advertising — so there’s not a lot of natural synergies in that way,” Sarandos said. “I’m not saying ‘never say never’ on sports; it’s more of ‘What’s the best use of $10 billion?’”

But Netflix’s business has changed markedly since then. It rolled out an ad-supported plan of its own in late 2022, and it has been increasing its presence in the live-streaming sphere as well. The platform offered its first live sports event in the form of the Netflix Cup golf tournament in 2023, after testing its livestream technology with a live broadcast of a Chris Rock comedy special, as well as a reunion episode of its reality series “Love is Blind.” The biggest prize for Netflix until its deal to acquire NFL rights was a global agreement with WWE to begin streaming live episodes of “Raw” each week starting in 2025.

The decline in pay-TV subscribers has also likely played a big part in Netflix’s willingness to start pursuing marquee sports rights. In 2023 alone, top cable and satellite companies lost almost 7 million customers, which proves there is a growing audience of customers who are searching for ways to access their favorite content because they no longer have a pay-TV subscription to deliver it. Netflix now has the opportunity to offer any of those viewers who aren’t already subscribers an incredibly popular TV product.

The acquisition of NFL rights is a purely streaming play for Netflix. Unlike Amazon, which was partially motivated to pursue the league as a way to steer people toward its e-commerce platform, Netflix doesn’t have anything to sell NFL fans other than a subscription. The NFL has taken an incredibly deliberate approach to increasing its streaming presence, just as Netflix has taken a path some might call Byzantine in its live sports philosophy. But the two paths have finally aligned, leading to a three-year deal that will see Netflix stream NFL games on Christmas in 2024, 2025, and 2026.

Sign Up

netflix.com

Netflix

Netflix is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 3,000+ movies, 2,000+ TV Shows, and Netflix Originals like Stranger Things, Squid Game, The Crown, Tiger King, and Bridgerton. They are constantly adding new shows and movies. Some of their Academy Award-winning exclusives include Roma, Marriage Story, Mank, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

…

Netflix offers three plans — on 2 device in HD with their “Standard with Ads” ($6.99) plan, on 2 devices in HD with their “Standard” ($15.49) plan, and 4 devices in up to 4K on their “Premium” ($22.99) plan.

Netflix spends more money on content than any other streaming service meaning that you get more value for the monthly fee.

Sign Up

$6.99+ / month

netflix.com