YouTube could snag streaming rights to 2026 NFL Draft
YouTube could snag streaming rights to 2026 NFL Draft
The platform is among several services who are looking into streaming rights for the draft.
The 2025 NFL Draft begins tonight at 8 p.m. ET, but the league already has its eye on the future. The streaming rights to the NFL Draft in 2026 are a hot topic among media outlets, and while the draft’s linear TV rights are likely to remain right where they are, fans could see the streaming rights to the event land at one of several different outlets.
Key Details:
- YouTube’s to lose?: Puck reports that YouTube is the front-runner to get NFL Draft streaming rights.
- International appeal: The league also reportedly wants to sell international rights to a U.S.-based streamer.
- Get to 50: ESPN has offered the draft for 46 consecutive years, and is looking to extend its linear deal.
John Ourand of Puck reported this week that YouTube is considered the front-runner to land the streaming rights to the 2026 NFL Draft this year. That would presumably allow viewers to stream the draft for free without a subscription, with the potential to attract a large audience of cord-cutting fans who previously didn’t have access to the event.
Ourand also reports that the NFL intends to sell the international streaming rights to the draft to a streaming service based in the United States. A deal could include both domestic and international rights, which would be consistent with the NFL’s desire to achieve maximum possible reach.
Netflix and Prime Video have both “kicked the tires” on a potential deal, in addition to YouTube. Both of those on-demand streamers are current NFL partners; Prime Video broadcasts “Thursday Night Football” games during the regular season, and will stream a game on Christmas Day in 2025 as well. Netflix first offered a Christmas Day doubleheader of NFL games in 2024, and will do likewise this year.
Extending the reach of the draft could be critical. As a cord-never, it’s been a challenge for a football fan like myself to watch the draft each year, with coverage on ABC, ESPN, and NFL Network. Other fans who don’t have a pay-TV service deal with a similar struggle every year, and making it available on a streaming platform like Netflix, Prime Video, or YouTube would be an undoubted boon to this subset of viewers.
Selling streaming rights to the draft to one of these platforms wouldn’t mean that it will disappear from linear channels, however. Ourand also reports that ESPN is likely to renew its agreement for broadcast rights to the draft after this season. The draft has been on ESPN for 46 consecutive years, and that looks unlikely to change.
Prime Video
Prime Video is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 10,000+ movies, TV shows, and Prime Originals like “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” “Jack Ryan,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “The Boys,” and more. Subscribers can also add third-party services like Max, Showtime, STARZ, and dozens more with Prime Video Channels. Prime Video also offers exclusive live access to NFL Thursday Night Football.