Gridiron Grab: Netflix Agrees To Stream NFL Games

Source: Netflix / NFL

Netflix has made a deal with the National Football League , the first of its kind for the streaming giant.

According to reports , Netflix is now a member of the sports streaming game as it has entered into a partnership with the National Football League. The deal is set for three years beginning with the upcoming 2024-2025 season. The deal will also include two Christmas Day games to be aired this year. The two games that Netflix will carry on Christmas Day will be rivalry games – the Pittsburgh Steelers travel to take on the Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium, and the Baltimore Ravens head to NRG Stadium to face off against the Houston Texans. The Pittsburgh and Kansas City game holds a potential surge in viewing thanks to Taylor Swift’s huge fan base (she’s currently dating Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce).

The streaming giant is expanding its sports offerings, having finalized a deal with World Wrestling Entertainment for the rights to stream its weekly flagship show “Raw”. It’s set to stream the highly anticipated match between social media influencer Jake Paul and boxing legend Mike Tyson in July. The move falls in line with Netflix’s aggressive foray into live events within the past few years. It recently played host to “The Roast of Tom Brady”, which ranked as its highest-rated English language show within the past two weeks.

“Last year, we decided to take a big bet on live — tapping into massive fandoms across comedy, reality TV, sports and more,” Bela Bejaria, Netflix’s chief content officer, said in a statement. “There are no live annual events, sports or otherwise, that compare with the audiences N.F.L. football attracts.” Netflix’s entry into a game where Amazon has currently locked down Thursday night games since 2022 and NBC’s Peacock landed a playoff game in a landmark deal last season is set to have a serious impact. “Getting the king of premium streamers to say we are in the sports business for real is a pretty big deal for television,” said Lightshed Partners technology analyst Richard Greenfield. “Because it doesn’t matter what this means now — it just shows you you’ve got another serious bidder for sports rights.”