Netflix more than doubled its NFL footprint this season compared to last. The streamer is scheduled to exclusively broadcast five games as opposed to just two last year.
It’s all part of the company’s broader live events strategy. Week 1 from Melbourne, Thanksgiving Eve, a Christmas doubleheader, and a Week 18 matchup with playoff implications all qualify as “events”; however, Netflix defines that word.
The streamer’s expanded interest in football has led many to speculate it could make a play for a larger package come 2030, when the NFL is expected to opt out of most of its current broadcast deals and potentially restructure how it slices and dices games.
Just this week, Awful Announcing published version 2.0 of our 2030 NFL media rights predictions. In it, we wrote that we expect Netflix to secure the NFL’s Sunday Night Football package. Here’s our reasoning:
Netflix, more than any other major streamer, has the appetite to make a splash in this way.
For one, Netflix is slowly losing ground on the engagement front to free platforms like YouTube and Tubi. The streamer needs to add tentpole content to justify its comparably high prices, which now approach $20 per month for the ad-free tier.
Speaking of ads, Netflix needs to bulk up its offering to entice more advertisers as its ad-supported tier becomes a larger portion of its subscriber base. Nothing serves as rocket fuel for an advertising business quite like the NFL. Legacy networks regularly leverage NFL programming to compel advertisers to purchase spots across other, less valuable programming. Sunday Night Football would let Netflix run the same playbook to juice its ad business further.
Of course, we’ve all heard about Netflix’s desire to “eventize” its sports content, and nothing comes closer to a big-time event, at least every week, than Sunday Night Football.
To be sure, the NFL will likely charge Netflix a king’s ransom for this package, but Netflix should be willing to pay. Sunday Night Football would help the streamer’s engagement woes and ad business, and Netflix is a content company in a way its tech-giant competitors simply aren’t. Netflix doesn’t have to invest in AI at the same rate as Amazon, Google, and Apple do.
At the end of the day, Netflix’s core business is having content that people want to pay for. There’s arguably no better content available than one of the top NFL games of the week in a standalone window on 18 Sundays each year.
As it turns out, Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria believes Sunday Night Football could qualify as an “event” under Netflix’s definition, but fell well short of suggesting the company would be interested in bidding on the package in 2030. In a recent interview with CNBC’s Alex Sherman, Bajaria answered “Yes” when posed with a question about whether Sunday Night Football is seen as an event, but quickly pivoted to company talking points about wanting a “diverse portfolio” of events, like CONCACAF soccer rights in Mexico or boxing matches of global interest, without addressing whether Netflix would ever be interested in competing for Sunday Night Football.
She did, however, suggest the streamer could have “conversations” about a hypothetical future package of international games. The NFL is widely expected to introduce such a package after a seemingly inevitable expansion to an 18-game season.
“We obviously have this large global audience and a very engaged global audience,” Bajaria told CNBC. “I think people will probably just go to that as kind of like a natural, ‘Would we do international?’ We have lots of U.S. members who obviously love NFL and football, and so I think we’re always going to continue to have conversations.”
Perhaps that suggests Netflix would have more interest in a future international package than taking over Sunday Night Football from NBC. But it’s important to remind readers of the old adage when it comes to Netflix: Don’t listen to what they say, watch what they do.
Netflix has said one thing and done another many times throughout its history. The company that once embraced password sharing and said it would never have ads on its platform now employs one of the strictest account-sharing defenses of any streamer and is fully leaning into its ad-supported tier. It doesn’t behoove Netflix to project interest in Sunday Night Football at this early stage, even if the streamer actually wants the package.
Bajaria’s affirmative answer that Sunday Night Football can be considered an “event” is likely the most we’ll get from Netflix on the matter until it’s time to bid. Then, it’s anyone’s guess what happens.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.