Besides gardening’s success as a top platform for movies and TV series, Netflix strives to become a new home for live sports events. On Wednesday, the world’s top streaming service announced securing a new deal to stream the National Football League (NFL) Christmas Day games.
According to the announcement, Netflix will broadcast two NFL games on December 25, 2024. The underlined games will be between Ravens vs. Houston and Chiefs vs Pittsburgh.
As the streaming giant has inked a three-year deal with the NFL, it will stream at least one Christmas Day game in 2025 and 2026 on the same day. This event marks highest-profile sports covering on Netflix, as it reportedly pays $75 million for a single game.
While speaking on the company’s move, Bela Bajaria, Chief Content officer at Netflix, noted in a statement;
Last year, we decided to take a big bet on live — tapping into massive fandoms across comedy, reality TV, sports, and more. There are no live annual events, sports or otherwise, that compare with the audiences NFL football attracts. We’re so excited that the NFL’s Christmas Day games will be only on Netflix.
In addition to Netflix, the games will be aired on broadcast TVs in the competing teams’ cities. Similarly, NFL+ subscribers will have live access to the Christmas Day games via mobile devices.
Notably, it’s not the first time Netflix and NFL have collaborated. The streaming giant released the NFL’s ‘Quarterback’ docuseries on July 12, 2023, and is set to premiere the sports series ‘Receiver’ in the summer of 2024.
While speaking at the MoffettNathanson conference on Wednesday, Vice President of Finance at Netflix, Spencer Wang, expressed that the platform secured rights of the single game at “a very manageable cost; I would characterize each game as the cost of one of our medium-sized original films.”
Netflix Becoming a Live Sports Hub
The partnership signifies the media company’s live-streaming expansion plans. Though Netflix already covers live comedy specials, non-match sports events, and reality TV shows, it will be the first time streaming giant broadcast live game events of professional sports leagues.
Apart from the NFL collaboration, Netflix is preparing to host other sports games, including boxing and wrestling series. The streaming service has set its sights on streaming a boxing match between undisputed champion Mike Tyson and famous YouTube star Jake Paull on July 20, 2024. Similarly, it will also premiere the WWE Raw series starting in 2025. Known as the largest subscription-based streaming platform in the world, Netflix secured a 10-year deal with the WWE for $5 billion.
Also, it is not only the Netflix to feature NFL games. As every streaming service today does its best to keep viewers attached to their platforms, NFL content appears as a solid reason for customers to return.
Rather, Netflix enters the NFL’s games relatively late, as some major streamers have been featuring sports leagues for some time now. For example, Apple TV+ offers MLS Season Pass and Friday Night Football. Amazon has secured rights to stream Friday Night Football with Paramount+, featuring live NFL games via CBS alongside a few top-level soccer leagues.
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