Netflix is now spending roughly $1 billion annually on live events, but in sports it has continued to chase individual pieces of marquee programming rather than season-long tie-ups.
Beginning this year, Netflix is reportedly paying $50 million per season to cover MLB’s Home Run Derby, an Opening Night game and one other special-event baseball contest. It spent another $200 million to broadcast next summer’s women’s World Cup. And given how much NFL game broadcast rights often cost, Netflix is believed to be paying up to $500 million for a slate of five games this season. The tech giant will once again stream a Christmas doubleheader, and it has added a Week 1 game from Australia on Thursday evening (U.S. time), a Thanksgiving Eve contest and a Week 18 matchup expected to have playoff implications. Standalone darts and tennis events are also on the streamer’s upcoming calendar.
Netflix’s live rights make up about 5% of its overall content spend, even though the shows—which also have included combat sports, comedy roasts and skyscraper climbing—only contribute 1% of the service’s viewing total hours. But live events bring in valuable new users and big-budget advertisers along with them.
The streamer saw two of its three biggest sign-up spikes since 2018 around live NFL games in 2024 and 2025, according to data from Ampere Analytics, gathering more than 1 million members across two Christmases. The only bigger surge in that timeframe came when Mike Tyson fought Jake Paul in November 2024, pushing the streamers’ servers to their limit.
Netflix’s initial live sports strategy was to target high-impact moments with the potential for mainstream culture crossover, rather than looking for season-long status. But as Netflix picks up more rights, how many special events can it show before they are no longer special? Its ability to “eventize” more NFL games will also be critical to the league’s proliferation of standalone games in new TV timeslots.
Netflix will have a consistent commentary offering this NFL season, built around studio host Elle Duncan and insider Tom Pelissero. NBC’s Noah Eagle and CBS’s Luke Kuechly will call the Australia game from the booth, with commentators not yet announced for Netflix’s upcoming games. Behind the camera, NBC experts have reportedly been called in too. Netflix plans to deliver fundamental game coverage familiar to any football fan, while at the same time making each event feel unique.
Netflix has tapped Beyoncé, Snoop Dogg and Kelly Clarkson for musical performances during past NFL broadcasts. It has also leveraged other parts of its entertainment arsenal, bringing in WWE stars and voices from KPop Demon Hunters.
On Thursday, Netflix plans to highlight the unique elements of hosting a regular-season NFL game in Australia for the first time.
Baseball diehards pushed back against the company’s style earlier this year, finding Netflix’s first MLB stream a bit too distinct from traditional broadcasts. By the time the streamer carried the Field of Dreams game in August, it tweaked elements of its production, including its scorebug. Balancing single broadcasts for both dedicated fanatics and casual lookie-loos remains a challenge, particularly for companies like Netflix that don’t have a whole season to work with.
“We’re going to eventize these things,” Duncan said in April. “If you’re asking us to stop being Netflix-y … it’s not a thing that’s going to happen.”
While fragmentation frustrates people juggling multiple services, streamers see value in picking up even a few games, as sports fans have shown a tendency to keep subscribing after the final whistle. Ampere found that 45 percent of those who signed up for Netflix’s first Christmas game in 2024 were still active one year later. At the same time Netflix adds more tentpole streams, it’s also buying less expensive fare, such as licensed video podcasts, to expand viewer watch time and keep them subscribed even longer.
These days, Netflix can use every committed eyeball it can get. The company’s stock has dropped by 39% over the last year amid analyst concerns about increasing competition for people’s entertainment time, particularly from free services such as TikTok and YouTube. Generative AI threatens to make even more content for people to consume elsewhere, though Netflix has argued its premium fare will win out.
“There’s a difference between spending time and killing time,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said in 2025, highlighting the quality of engagement Netflix draws, not just the quantity. And it’s harder to find a more locked-in audience than a group of NFL fans glued to a game.
At $9/month, Netflix is one of the cheaper premium media subscriptions available, though fans will need to pay for at least three months of membership if they want to watch all five of its games, which are also broadcast over-the-air in competing teams’ local markets. And Netflix’s NFL expansion has also brought the company deeper into political battles over fan access to games.
“The Packers will play the Rams on Thanksgiving Eve, but millions of Wisconsinites won’t be able to watch unless they pay for a costly Netflix subscription,” Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin said online in May after the schedule was released. “That’s just ridiculous.”
Sports leagues will be rooting for Netflix’s success, as a winning relationship could lead the company to pursue bigger rights packages. Amazon Prime Video has built one of the strongest sports portfolios in American media, headlined by its Thursday Night Football package. YouTube has taken a slightly different approach to live rights, though it’s $2 billion annual Sunday Ticket score instantly made it a candidate for more sports deals. Apple showed its continued interest in sports with Formula 1 streams starting this season. NBC-owned Peacock will have its latest exclusive NFL stream in Week 17.
Though the NFL has gotten rid of its Monday Night Football doubleheaders this season, the league will have a total of 75 standalone games across Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Monday affairs.
“We’ll continue to look if there’s better ways and there’s other opportunities to serve our fans that still work on the competitive side and work with our clubs and work with our teams,” NFL EVP of media distribution Hans Schroeder said when asked about further calendar experimentation.
An extra bidder at the table come renegotiation time is valuable for any sport. The NFL’s current set of deals are set to end around 2030. It remains to be seen just how aggressive streamers will be in those talks. And Netflix brings more than money to the table, having shown a particular ability to deliver younger fans, including with non-live shows like Drive to Survive, while also boasting global reach.
Massive streamers can help the NFL remain easily accessible and top-of-mind for general audiences as people’s attention moves towards digital platforms. But the league also must be careful not to rely too heavily on a couple of companies, whose priorities could shift over time.
So far, top streaming services have largely been convinced that the NFL can help them grow, even if sports in general still aren’t pivotal to tech titans’ ultimate bottom line. As one point of reference, YouTube’s $2 billion of Sunday Ticket spending looks smaller when put next to parent company Alphabet’s planned $200 billion in capital expenditures this year, driven by demand for AI infrastructure. Netflix spending 5% of its content budget on live events represents growth, but it still pales in comparison to Fox devoting more than 50% of its content budget to live sports in recent years.
For now, Netflix is mostly sticking by its marquee event model rather than looking to hoover up sports, seasons at a time. In media’s increasingly crowded field, that makes it stand out.
