It looks like Netflix is finally set to fully commit to live sports.
A new report by John Ourand of Puck confirms that Netflix is expected to wind up airing the two Christmas games for the 2024 NFL season, confirming the prediction put out by NFL legend and radio host Boomer Esiason earlier this week.
The teams that will play on those two games are still unclear as the league has delayed its schedule announcement to Wednesday, May 15.
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Netflix (NFLX) has been dipping its toes in sports for the last few years, starting with popular sports docuseries like “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” and “Quarterback.” The streaming giant then moved on to airing livestreams of sports-related events such as exhibition matches like “The Netflix Cup” and most recently, aired “The Roast of Tom Brady.”
But the company did not commit to live streaming of sports the same way its rivals like Amazon (AMZN) have as Prime Video had committed billions to air live sports like NFL’s “Thursday Night Football.” In January, Netflix then suddenly announced a massive 10-year, $5 billion deal that would have WWE Raw streamed live on Netflix by 2025.
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Even then, Netflix tried to play it off as a continuation of its sports storytelling because WWE is live sports entertainment rather than an unscripted product.
“You know, we said this many times, but not anti-sports but pro-profitable growth,” Sarandos said during Netflix’s Q1 2024 earnings call in April. “And I think that’s the core of everything we do in all kinds of programming, including sports. So, our North Star is to grow engagement, revenue, and profit. And if we find opportunities, we could drive all three of those, we will do that across an increasingly wide variety of quality entertainment. So, when and if those opportunities arrive that we can come in and do that, which we feel like we did in our deal with WWE, if we can repeat those dynamics in other things, including sports, we’ll look at it for sure.”
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Should the reports be confirmed by Netflix, the NFL deal would mark Netflix’s first foray into airing a major sports league’s live game on its platform.
The financials of the deal are still unclear, though don’t be shocked if this goes in the range of around $200 million for the game as multiple reports have said that Amazon paid around $100 million to air the NFL’s first Black Friday game, while NBC reportedly paid a similar amount to air last year’s Wild Card game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins on Peacock. That was the first NFL playoff game that was aired exclusively on a streaming service.
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