CBS Sports CEO David Berson rejects the notion that the company’s agreement to produce two Christmas Day NFL games for Netflix is tantamount to aiding the enemy.
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“When the news first came out,” Berson told reporters Tuesday at an NFL media breakfast, “I actually said, ‘Welcome to the party!’”
NFL football, he continued, “is so powerful that if more entities continue to prop it up, it’s going to benefit everyone. I firmly believe that. We’re still the home of the AFC. We have half the games on Sunday afternoons. We have 100 games. We’re really well-positioned. They’re doing two games on one day. And if it generates more interest, great. As for us deciding to do that, the NFL and Netflix are longstanding partners. We have great relationships with both of them. The fact that we were able to work something out with them and truly have a win-win-win deal is great.”
Berson, who rose to the top role at CBS Sports last April after the retirement of his longtime boss, Sean McManus, noted that the company has long provided production services for others. It handles NFL games for NFL Network and golf events for ESPN and the Golf Channel, to name two examples. “This is not new,” Berson said. “We do this because we’re seen as a leader here, not just for the product on the air but we have good people who like working together and other networks and leagues appreciate the way we go about things.”
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Netflix announced its NFL doubleheader last May, signaling a bold entry into major live sports rights, and word followed last week that CBS had been tapped to handle production . While Netflix has bulked up its production resources of late, streaming live comedy, unscripted and sports-adjacent events in recent years, the streaming leader currently lacks the experience and resources to carry the NFL on its own. The same was true of Amazon, however, when it simulcast Thursday Night Football games on Prime Video as broadcast networks aired them on linear TV. In 2022, though, the tech giant kicked off an 11-y ear exclusive deal for exclusive TNF games and invested heavily in its internal capabilities. A similar path to self-determination certainly seems feasible for Netflix given its financial position.
For now, Berson sees an array of benefits for CBS beyond the producing fee. Under the NFL’s agreements with its media partners, local TV stations must carry the games in the markets of the two participating teams. In the case of Christmas 2024, that means two CBS owned stations in Baltimore and Pittsburgh and CBS affiliates in Kansas City and Houston.
“There’s ad inventory there for those four,” Berson explained. “We’re going to have promotional opportunities during the games themselves. And we have a larger advertising relationship with Netflix that comes into play here too. There’s no doubt that it’s a win-win deal. We’re benefiting financially and strategically from doing this. It works really well for both parties.”
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