The National Football League’s bet on streaming is paying off — and helping to expand its fan base in the U.S. and worldwide.
Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s executive vice president of media distribution, said at the CNBC x Boardroom’s Game Plan sports business event on Tuesday that the league’s recent string of exclusive streaming deals with media companies shows its push to grow its audience.
When the NFL signed an 11-year, $111 billion media rights deal through 2021, streaming was already part of the mix. “Thursday Night Football” has found its exclusive home Amazon‘s Prime Video as part of this deal, while other legacy media partners have been given the go-ahead to start streaming games on their services.
And that was just the beginning. The following year, the NFL’s “Sunday Ticket” package that allows viewers to see out-of-market games moved to Googleof YouTube TV. ComcastNBCUniversal began airing “Sunday Night Football” games on the Peacock alongside its regular broadcast, and later released an exclusive Wild Card game that would only appear on its streaming service. Giant flow Netflix then secured a deal to air the games on Christmas Day, starting this year.
“I think these latest steps are the latest in a journey that goes back probably 15 years ago, where we had a meeting with Steve Jobs and a small group of us,” Schroeder said, referring to when the former Apple The CEO showed the team an early iteration of the iPhone and described how it would affect consumers. “That led us, in part, to retain the rights for live games on mobile phones.”
Schroeder said this was the first of several steps the NFL has taken to get its current day, in which much of its media rights strategy is focused on streaming.
The NFL Wild Card game that aired exclusively on the Peacock earlier this year was a sign that the strategy is paying off. It is considered the most-streamed live event in history with 27.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen.
“I think for us it was probably the most transformative moment in years to be able to put on a Wild Card game, one of the truly most valuable, highest viewed games of the year. [on Peacock]Schroeder said.
The streaming expansion has been carried over to this season. Last week, the NFL’s first game in Brazil was available exclusively on the Peacock, on average 14 million viewers.
“I give the NFL a lot of credit for putting on the white lab coat with us and experimenting,” NBC Sports president Rick Cordella said at the Game Plan event.
He noted that Peacock’s sports strategy began with its launch in 2020 with English Premier League games, along with other sports such as the NFL, and will continue to grow in the 2025-26 season with NBA games.
Similarly, Lori Conkling, YouTube’s head of global TV, film and sports partnerships, said during Tuesday’s conference call that data the company has across its various platforms shows high viewership for sports and underscores why “Sunday Ticket” made sense as an offer.
The majority of NFL media rights deals are with traditional broadcast partners. Live sports broadcasts have maintained a large audience on traditional television, even as consumers ditch their cable package for streaming services. The majority of viewing still comes from traditional television, according to ratings data.
Schroeder said Tuesday that the NFL’s strategy exists in both the traditional TV world and the streaming world. However, the league has said it wants to grow its fan base and move in the same direction as the consumer, which is towards streaming. The league is also looking to expand beyond its US footprint, and playing games overseas is only part of the equation.
“The Netflix deal will probably be the first of its kind that will be truly global,” Schroeder said. “And for us, I think there are expectations that our global audience will only rival what a window in the states would do.”
Netflix will stream NFL games for the next three years, with two games airing on the platform this year and at least one matchup in both 2025 and 2026.
Disclosure: Comcast’s NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.
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