Will Netflix Snag Sunday Afternoon NFL Games?
By Movieguide® Contributor
In 2024, Netflix broadcasted two Christmas Day NFL games, acquiring over 24 million viewers for each game, and the streamer wants to keep the success going.
Netflix’s chief content officer Bela Bejaria told Puck News the company hopes to build its NFL game schedule by vying for the Sunday afternoon games: “I definitely want the Sunday [afternoon] games,” she said.
NBC’s Pro Football Talk reported that CBS and Fox currently hold rights to the games during that time slot. “Fox acquired the NFC package from CBS in 1994, and CBS snatched the AFC package from NBC in 1998,” the outlet said.
That current broadcast deal doesn’t expire until 2033; however, “the league has the right to pull the plug on the deals four years early, and it likely will.”
READ MORE: NETFLIX CELEBRATES NFL CHRISTMAS BROADCAST SUCCESS — AND PLANS MORE SPORTS STREAMS
This news comes as a bit of a surprise as Netflix previously signaled it wanted to focus on big live events.
“If there was a path where we could actually make the economics work, for both us and the leagues, we would certainly explore [it],” CEO Ted Sarandos explained in January. “But right now, we believe that the live events business is where we really want to be.”
But the company sees the success from events like the Christmas Day NFL games and its WWE broadcasts, which could be the reason for leadership’s shifting position.
WWE RAW averaged “2.6 million households for its first outing on Netflix, which struck a $5 billion rights deal for the WWE‘s flagship weekly show a year ago,” The Hollywood Reporter wrote, more than doubling numbers from 2024’s household average when it broadcasted on the USA Network.
READ MORE: NETFLIX CELEBRATES NFL CHRISTMAS BROADCAST SUCCESS — AND PLANS MORE SPORTS STREAMS
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