NFL Games Are Shifting Away From Traditional TV

The NFL season kicks off Thursday with the Super Bowl champions Kansas City Chiefs hosting the Detroit Lions. Since the season opener is considered a “Sunday Night Football” game on the schedule, NBCUniversal will air the game on both its broadcast network and streaming app, Peacock.

CNBC reports this more aggressive shift toward streaming comes after several seasons of companies such as Paramount Global, Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Disney’s ESPN showing games simultaneously on streaming services and traditional TV. Now, media companies are bulking up their streaming platforms with more exclusive content in hopes of not only signing up more subscribers, but also locking them in as long-term customers.

Later in the season, Peacock, along with Disney’s ESPN+ and Amazon, will have games that will be streamed only. Google’s YouTube TV and the NFL’s streaming service will also become bigger players in the streaming game.

Streaming may also play a bigger role in NFL viewership as Disney’s networks have gone dark for customers of cable-TV provider Charter Communications, which could coax football fans to opt for internet TV bundles such as Fubo.

When media giants signed NFL media rights deals in 2021, valued at more than $100 billion, more of those deals included the rights to streaming games. Plus, in this past year, the NFL sold the media rights to its “Sunday Ticket” to Google’s YouTube TV for about $2 billion annually, shifting access to the package of out-of-market games to a streaming-only audience.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had pushed for a streaming-only home for “Sunday Ticket,” saying in the months ahead of closing the deal that he thought it was “best for consumers at this stage.”

More and more NFL games are being offered through streaming services in addition to their broadcast and pay-TV homes, but this season will see more games exclusively available outside the traditional TV ecosystem.