TV Talk: NFL spreads telecasts among networks, streaming platforms (2024)

Remember in January when the NFL’s AFC Wild Card game streamed nationally on Peaco*ck and viewers were confused about how to watch it? Well, steel yourself for the 2024-25 NFL season with games on platforms as varied as Amazon’s Prime Video, home to Thursday night games for a couple of seasons already, and Netflix, which just got the rights to stream Christmas day games.

Why can’t the NFL just stick to airing games on broadcast channels? As with most things in big business, it’s about money.

“The streamers have forced their way into sports TV’s door because they have the money,” explained media journalist Phillip Swann, who writes and edits the TV Answer Man website.

He said legacy TV companies – that’s your ABC, NBC broadcasters as well as cable networks like ESPN — are being squeezed by cord-cutting.

“But the streamers have either amassed huge war chests from other businesses —Amazon’s e-commerce, Apple’s hardware sales — or they are being heavily subsidized by larger companies [like] Comcast’s Peaco*ck,” Swann said. “Netflix is the exception – a pure video company — and it’s not a coincidence they have been relatively shy about getting involved [in sports] until lately. By offering game rights to streamers, the leagues can expand their rights fees.”

Global streaming platforms also offer the opportunity to export the NFL brand worldwide. It’s also a way to reach younger viewers, who are more likely to watch via a streaming service than traditional broadcast or cable TV. (The NFL audience is pretty evenly distributed among all age groups.)

Still, the majority of NFL games remain widely available on broadcast TV. The most significant exceptions are Prime Video’s Thursday night games, Netflix’s two Christmas day games and Prime Video’s streaming of a Wild Card game in January 2025.

While Netflix has expressed disinterest in live sports programming in the past, the world’s largest streaming service has taken tentative steps into the world of streaming live events, beginning with a Chris Rock stand-up show in March 2023 and expanding to sports entertainment as it becomes the new home of thrice-weekly live “WWE Raw” episodes in January 2025.

Earlier this month Netflix took its biggest leap yet by snagging the rights to Christmas day games with plans to air at least one (two this year, including the Steelers against the Kansas City Chiefs) on Christmas through 2026.

For Steelers fans, the NFL’s expansion to streaming platforms will have limited impact this fall. Just two games are nationally exclusive to streaming – Nov. 21 on Prime Video, Dec. 25 on Netflix – and in both instances, there will also be simulcasts on local stations in the towns of the two competing teams. For the past few years, Prime Video games have aired in Pittsburgh on WPXI-TV.

For more fervent NFL fans who want to see every game, YouTube’s Sunday Ticket remains the most robust option, offering most but not all out-of-market regular season games for $449 annually (or $349 annually if you also subscribe to YouTube TV, which costs an additional $73 per month).

But the NFL’s deals with Amazon and Netflix are starting to nibble into Sunday Ticket’s value. Swann said games that stream on Amazon, Peaco*ck, ESPN+ and Netflix are not available on Sunday Ticket.

Swann said a smart consumer can save money by doing short-term streaming subscriptions when possible and using an antenna for local channels.

“Decide which games you really want to watch,” he said. “If your hometown favorites are playing on Christmas, get the $6.99 ads-included subscription with Netflix. If they are playing on Amazon’s ‘Thursday Night Football,’ get the 30-day free trial.”

If you don’t already subscribe to Amazon Prime and want Prime Video’s Thursday night games (as well as a Black Friday exclusive game, a pre-season game and a wild card playoff game), Prime Video alone without Amazon shipping is around $9 per month. Subscribe in September and cancel at the end of January and those Prime Video games cost about $45 for the full season.

Peaco*ck, which will offer 25 regular season NFL games and one exclusive game opening week on Sept. 6 (Philadelphia Eagles vs. Green Bay Packers), will cost $8 per month this fall ($40 for a full NFL season).

ESPN+ will carry all the games that air on ESPN and ABC but ESPN+ will also have one exclusive Monday night game (Los Angeles Chargers vs. Arizona Cardinals on Nov. 21). ESPN+ costs $11 per month and is also available as a bundle with Hulu and Disney+ for $15 per month.

If you want to watch every single regular season NFL game, here’s the NFL TV math: one month of Peaco*ck for its one exclusive game ($8) + five months of Prime Video ($45) + one month of Netflix in December ($7) + one month of ESPN+ for its one exclusive game ($11) = $71. But that only covers the streaming exclusives.

If a viewer wants all the out-of-market games, they’ll also have to pay for NFL Sunday Ticket, either as a one-time stand-alone cost for the season ($449) or with YouTubeTV if you can’t get all the local stations by antenna for Steelers games ($349 for Sunday Ticket + $438 for YouTube TV September through February = $787).

So the grand total is either $520 if you can get local games by antenna or $858 if you need YouTube TV to access local games (or you could sub in a monthly cable bill in place of YouTube TV).

Down the road, expect to see still more sporting events from assorted leagues show up on streaming services. But traditional TV viewers can take heart that for the foreseeable future the Super Bowl will still air on a broadcast channel.

This week KOMO-TV in Seattle aired a terrific feature story by reporter Eric Johnson on a Seattleite who saw Fred Rogers on stage in Seattle in 1985 as a child and then in college road tripped to Pittsburgh with a buddy and met Rogers in person. …