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14 May 2024
We have entered a new age of viewing live sports, and that is the introduction of exclusive games on streaming platforms. The NFL has been particularly interested in live streaming football games in recent years as the league continuously looks for ways to gain new revenue. It’s believed that Netflix will land an NFL game for the 2024 season, making it the first major league game to stream on the Netflix platform. It’s also rumored that negotiations with Netflix are what caused the NFL 2024 schedule release date to be delayed until May 15th.
In advance of the NFL’s schedule release, they have already announced it will have games on Christmas Day in 2024 despite the holiday falling on a Wednesday. That’s right, it’s rumored that the NFL is selling a Christmas game package to a new broadcast partner in Netflix. Streaming exclusive games has worked out well for streaming companies in that new subscribers sign up for a free trial to watch the game and then convert to paid subscribers.
NFL games have been available on streaming as an additional viewing option for years, but it wasn’t until 2022 that the league began broadcasting games exclusively on a streaming platform. The NFL likes streaming games because it brings a younger audience, and the streamers are willing to spend a lot of money to air an NFL game. Netflix will join ESPN+, Peacock and Amazon as streamers that will have exclusive rights to at least one game this year.
Netflix has been testing the waters of live programming since the unsuccessful April 2023 broadcast of the Love Is Blind reunion special that was 90 minutes late due to technical difficulties. Let’s hope they will have a better outcome for their first live sports stream.