HOUSTON — When the NFL put a playoff game last season on the streaming service Peacock, some fans were up in arms. Now rumors have surfaced that Netflix is in talks to score a couple of Christmas day games for its streaming service.
That comes after the NFL already reached deals on the streaming rights for games on Amazon, Peacock, ESPN+ and YouTube TV.
All that adds up to a lot of games only available if you pay for a bunch of streaming services. For the NFL, the math is pretty obvious - branching out to streaming means money. According to reports, Amazon paid roughly a billion dollars a year to be the home of Thursday night football. Peacock reportedly paid $110 million for that one NFL playoff game. That’s a lot of money, but keep in mind, Peacock picked up millions of new subscribers ahead of that game.
The other part of this equation is those viewers - or should we say subscribers. According to Forbes, 99% of U.S. households now subscribe to at least one streaming service. If that's where your fans are, it makes sense for the NFL to gain some yards in the streaming arena. So while some fans may not be cheering the play, don’t expect the league to give up the game any time soon.