Netflix is ramping up its relationship with the NFL, adding three high-profile games to its schedule in addition to its Christmas Day rights, while adding the NFL Honors awards show during Super Bowl week and extending its overall NFL deal through the 2029 season.
Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria announced the expanded deal at the streaming giant’s upfront presentation Wednesday afternoon.
The streaming giant on Wednesday announced that this season it would be adding the NFL’s first Australia game in week 1, between the Los Angeles Rams against the San Francisco 49ers at the famed Melbourne Cricket Ground, and the Thanksgiving Eve game between the Green Bay Packers and the Los Angeles Rams that the league had been shopping, betting that it can become another major annual TV event. Netflix will also add a game from the 18th week of the regular season.
Future seasons will include a week 1 game, a Thanksgiving Eve match-up, one Christmas Day game, a week 18 regular season finale game and the NFL Honors, giving Netflix live NFL programming throughout the season, albeit without a full game package.
“We know there’s a lot of NFL fans on Netflix. We saw that with the 27.5 million viewers watching Minnesota and Detroit last year for the highest-streamed regular season game ever,” says Hans Schroeder, the executive vp and COO of NFL Media. “And we also saw how Netflix is incredibly special at building events. You look at these tentpoles sprinkled throughout our season, week one, week 18, two big holidays Thanksgiving and Christmas, bringing Netflix into that mix was incredibly exciting, and we think will significantly expand the reach of those games that were formerly just on ESPN in a way that we think is a real win, win for our fans.”
In truth, the upfronts are already something of a celebration of the NFL, with every company that has rights happy to tout them, often using the events to announce big matchups from the upcoming season, or to tout talent like Tom Brady, who opened the Fox upfront. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell himself made an appearance at Disney’s upfront Tuesday to celebrate the league’s deal with ESPN, which gave it an equity stake in exchange for NFL Network, additional games, and rights to RedZone.
However, Schroeder notes that the deal also gave the league an “opportunity” to take a handful of games that didn’t go to ESPN in the NFL Network deal and find new ways to package them. The result is the expanded slate for Netflix, as well as two national games for Fox, and one new national game for NBC.
“One of our North Stars is, how do we reach as many fans as we can, and how do we have broader distribution?” Schroeder says. “We had one game that we had allocated this year. That was the game we sold last year to YouTube for the Brazil game. So we had that, plus these four games we got back from ESPN, and we’re able to take those to market in a way that created a really interesting opportunity for somebody.”
The result of that was the Netflix package, the new Fox tripleheader and the new NBC and Peacock doubleheader.
The moves come as the NFL is facing regulatory scrutiny over its media rights, which is split between multiple partners. However, the moves made this week appear designed to soften those concerns. All told, Fox, CBS and NBC will all get exclusive national windows for games this season that had been on ESPN last season, while Netflix has more subscribers than the cable sports giant. The league, in other words, can frame the moves about expanding the accessibility of those games, as it continues to note that all NFL games are available on broadcast in their local markets.
“Our North Star really is about the reach,” Schroeder emphasizes. “How do we find ways to engage more fans, how do we continue to innovate and figure out where we can get better?”
But Netflix will also add to its awards portfolio with NFL Honors, bringing live programming from Super Bowl week to the platform. The league is betting that the streamer can elevate its in-house awards show.
“We think Netflix can take it to the next level, both with their creativity and how they can continue to build the show itself, but then the platform itself too,” says Schroeder. “Anybody can come on Netflix in the days afterwards and still leading up to Super Bowl is going to be able to watch. We think that’s a great way to engage throughout Super Bowl weekend and up into the game to have that show on Netflix.”
Leave a Reply