Last month the NFL and Netflix confirmed a deal with Netflix to air two NFL games on Christmas day 2024. This will also give Netflix exclusive rights to at least one Christmas day game in 2025 and 2026.
“Last year, we decided to take a big bet on live—tapping into massive fandoms across comedy, reality TV, sports, and more,” said Bela Bajaria, Netflix chief content officer. “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.”
CNBC has reported that Netflix is working to find a partner that can help it air these games. Getting the rights and having the equipment, crew, hosts, and more to make them a reality is something very different.
According to the report, Netflix has reached out to ESPN, NBCUniversal, and Paramount’s CBS Sports to find a partner willing to produce the games. For these partners this could still be a big win as they would get a cut of the profits from Netflix’s Christmas day NFL games without the need to spend the money to get the rights.
For Netflix, a partnership like this makes sense as it would be able to air the games without having to buy all the equipment needed to produce the games. Spending the millions of dollars needed just for the equipment would likely be far more expensive than just outsourcing the productions.
This would be like Amazon’s partnership with NBCUniversal to produce its NFL games in 2022.
“We couldn’t be more excited to be the first professional sports league to partner with Netflix to bring live games to fans around the world,” said Hans Schroeder, NFL executive vice president of media distribution. “The NFL on Christmas has become a tradition and to partner with Netflix, a service whose biggest day of the year is typically this holiday, is the perfect combination to grow this event globally for NFL fans.”
For now, no deal has been reached but look for something to come in the months ahead.
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