Eyebrows were raised throughout the sports world when Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria recently acknowledged that the outlet could look to land one of the Sunday afternoon NFL broadcast packages once the league can opt out of existing deals after the 2029 season.
For a mailbag published on Thursday, media insider Jimmy Traina of Sports Illustrated touched upon whether or not football fans should get used to the idea of needing Netflix on fall Sunday afternoons.
“If Netflix wanted a Sunday afternoon package when the bidding is open,” Traina explained, “they can blow CBS and Fox out of the water when it comes to a financial offer. The question is, will the NFL ditch a broadcast outlet for a streaming service when it comes to Sunday afternoons? Given the NFL’s desire to suck every penny possible out of everyone and everything, I’d bet that Netflix eventually ends up with a Sunday afternoon package.”
It’s widely believed the NFL and NFL Players Association will agree to a schedule format that will include teams playing 18 regular-season games per campaign before the opt-out date arrives in part so that everybody involved can earn more money via new broadcast deals. As it pertains to Netflix’s relationship with the NFL, the two exclusive Christmas Day games that streamed on the platform this past December were massive hits even though they weren’t available on over-the-air television.
Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio insisted that interest in a Sunday afternoon NFL package from Netflix is very “real.” Florio also thinks Netflix could explore acquiring “the universal collection of 1:00 p.m. ET, 4:05 p.m. ET and 4:25 p.m. ET games” and then look into selling broadcast rights to interested parties such as CBS, Fox, ABC and NBC.
It’s worth noting that Traina indicated that Netflix simply taking “Sunday Night Football” from NBC, “Monday Night Football” from ABC/ESPN and/or “Thursday Night Football” from Amazon Prime Video could be on the table. Such discussions can be punted down the road for now, but the post-Super Bowl LIX developments should serve as another reminder that it’s a matter of when and not if an 18-game NFL regular season will be announced this decade.
