Netflix is Reportedly Looking to Purchase Rights to Stream NFL Sunday Afternoon Games from CBS or Fox

NBC Sports - The NFL’s looming development of a full-blown Sunday morning international package had some thinking that Netflix, given its global footprint, would be interested. But Netflix is thinking bigger than the lower-profile, smaller-audience slate.

Much bigger.

The streamer’s chief content officer, Bela Bajaria, told Matt Belloni of Puck (via John Ourand of Puck) that the company is interested in bidding on the NFL’s Sunday afternoon games.

The Sunday afternoon games belong currently to CBS and Fox. Fox acquired the NFC package from CBS in 1994, and CBS snatched the AFC package from NBC in 1998.

The current broadcast deals run through 2033. The league has the right to pull the plug on the deals four years early, and it likely will.

So a major shakeup could be coming, with Netflix becoming a very major player in the NFL broadcast landscape. And if Netflix is in, one of the current partners will be out. Or, at best, relegated to Sunday mornings.

If that story had stopped after the first sentence, I'd have thought that was great. Netflix would be the perfect home for 9am EST games in London, England between the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Carolina Panthers. No better place than Netflix an early morning Giants vs Browns game. Maybe Raiders vs Colts. Titans vs Calgary Stampeders. Whoever the NFL has playing in those stand-alone Europe games that most people don't even realize are happening unless it's their specific team playing... those are perfect for Netflix. But once we start putting Sunday afternoon games on streaming while other games are happening on major networks, then it becomes a problem. Selfishly, I don't even care about the financial/forcing NFL fans to pay for another streaming service aspect of the whole thing. Whatever Netflix is charging per month has long been grandfathered into my bank statement. I'll be paying for Netflix until the day I die. But if there is ever a situation where people have to flip from cable to Netflix, or exit the YouTubeTV app to open up the Netflix app, then they're just massively hindering the NFL viewing experience as a whole. 

The way the majority of the headlines are written, it implies Netflix is only looking to take over the contract of either Fox or CBS. Which is honestly worse case scenario. If Netflix is going to be involved in Sunday afternoon games at all, at that point I would rather them just take them all. Make it a whole NFL package that you pay whatever amount of dollars for. Maybe by the grace of god, despite everything I've ever known about the National Football League and television contracts, maybe Sunday afternoon Netflix football would be cheaper than whatever insane price I'm paying for Sunday Ticket right now. Now I've typed that sentence out in full I realize how insane that sounds. Like somehow Netflix getting involved in football is going to be overall financially beneficial for the consumer.

But realistically, say Netflix acquires the AFC package from CBS, how would that even look? I have so many questions about it. Would Netflix only stream one local game at a time, depending on where in the country you're watching from? Or would all Sunday afternoon AFC games be available on Netflix for everybody? If it's the latter, that would almost certainly be sold in a separate NFL package. Either that, or they'll hike the up price of a Netflix subscription to something insane like $40/month across the board. And what would it mean for Sunday Ticket? The powers at be wouldn't possibly have the balls to structure an NFL/Netflix contract in a way that eliminates an entire conference of afternoon games from the Sunday Ticket? They can't do that right? 

There's just way too many players in the live sports TV contract business nowadays. It's hard to keep up with. I'm not even sure what I should be advocating for anymore. For a while there I thought I had it all figured out by having YouTubeTV for sports, then a few of the streaming services that have the best TV shows and movies. But now the streaming services have gotten into live sports, the waters have been muddied to a ridiculous extent. There will be times I just miss a big college football game entirely because I completely forget that Peacock even exists. Or I'll forget Thursday Night Football because Amazon Prime is off in it's own little world. I don't even know what's going on with hockey anymore. I'm pretty sure all the games are on HBO MAX for some reason. It's really gotten out of control. And I'm sure there's some streaming service I've been paying for for years because I singed up for a free trial to watch a game sometime in 2023, then just completely forgot to cancel. It's too much. 

So I guess I should be cheering against Netflix taking over NFL games? I just can't see a way that it wouldn't be both more annoying and more expensive. At this point I might be in favor of someone coming over the top, buying out every streaming service, buying out every college and professional sports contract there is, monopolize the entire industry, and just slap some insane monthly subscription fee that gives me everything. Like how cable used to be. I want them to re-invent cable. We've invented it before. We can do it again.