NFL Will Counteract TV’s Spending Limits With More Streaming Packages
Already the most expensive programming on television, the NFL’s $110 billion deal is going to get supersized yet again as the league goes back to the negotiating table well before those contracts expire in 2032.
CBS is already progressing toward a new deal that adds a reported $1 billion to its current $2.1 billion-per-season rate. As the standoff is starting in a TV environment that won’t in 2032, other traditional TV partners like ESPN — which the NFL has some ownership stake in — are potentially balking at the idea of an increase this far out, though.
Puck’s John Ourand has shared that there is growing sentiment among these networks to avoid jumping just because the NFL wants them to.
It doesn’t mean they won’t wind up paying some sort of premium on top of current (already high) rates for NFL rights. It just means that not even halfway into an 11-year deal, these cash-strapped media companies have no major reason to renegotiate so early.
In theory, they’re correct.
Even as NFL rights are getting more streaming-centric in recent years with Amazon Prime Video and Netflix both possessing their own packages, plus Sunday Ticket sitting on YouTube TV (not to mention the other international exclusives and playoff games sold to streaming), the idea is that a portion of the NFL’s power comes from their simple accessibility on broadcast networks and ESPN.
Ease of discovery has long been one of the NFL’s greatest strengths, sure. But portions of that dynamic have also flipped.
Amazon Prime Video reported record viewership during Thursday Night Football this season, and upon release of those figures, Austin Karp remarked it appeared to be the league’s best average in 20 years of TNF; a stretch that includes traditional networks holding those rights for portions of time, too.
Across ABC, CBS, ESPN, Fox and NBC last calendar year, the NFL was the No. 1 program by both TV ad reach (11.6% of the total) and ad spend (35.7%) according to iSpot data.
So for as much as the league does benefit from its wide availability via network partners, the NFL also contributes at least an estimated $8 billion to those bottom lines every year. Both sides know walking away would be catastrophic. Especially when streaming is just sitting there waiting to pick up the ball with deeper pockets.
This week,The Wall Street Journal reported that the NFL and Netflix are in talks for an annual four-game package that would double its current arrangement with the league.
Netflix has aired two NFL games on Christmas Day for the last two years, and is poised to do so again in 2026. As WSJ notes, this deal would add a new Thanksgiving Eve game (the league separately airs three games on Thanksgiving Day) and tack on one of the international games the NFL is currently shopping.
Right now, these games are not coming out of broadcast networks’ or ESPN’s allotments. But if streaming services are truly eager to scoop up this many package breakouts around holidays and international dates, doesn’t it just seem like a matter of time before they’re used as leverage against the networks for the NFL to get the rights increases its already looking for?
You could argue that’s what these breakout package conversations happening out in the open already are, to an extent.
By putting what’s essentially a per-game pricetag on NFL inventory, the league is coming to the networks with a reset market for rights, and a clear list of newer suitors to tell them: Either you pay more, or you lose some games because they will meet our asking price.
As the NFL’s value has escalated rapidly in recent years, using those streaming services to drive up prices, pay more themselves or both is exactly how it keeps the momentum going.
The biggest test of the idea may actually wind up being in preseason, where local rights can now be openly sold to streaming services.
Important there is not necessarily the price these games go for — though it’ll be interesting to see how much more Cowboys, Packers or Patriots local preseason rights are versus those of the Cardinals, Panthers or Titans. Rather, it serves as a test lab for which services are truly invested in upending the status quo of the NFL on TV, and how they’ll play a key role in the next round of media negotations.
In any case, the NFL’s already figured out the way around TV’s financial limitations. Now TV has to figure out how much longer it can afford to be along for the ride.
