Netflix’s Christmas Day NFL broadcasts marked a groundbreaking debut, earning praise for their high-quality streaming experience and record-breaking streaming ratings, even as overall viewership lagged behind last year’s television broadcasts.
The streaming giant entered the NFL market with a three-year, $150 million-per-year deal for Christmas Day games, generating excitement within the sports business community.
This move represents Netflix’s most significant foray into live sports, following smaller-scale ventures like tennis and golf events and last month’s Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul boxing match.
While the boxing event suffered from buffering issues, Netflix delivered a smooth NFL streaming experience for the matchups between the Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans.
The broadcasts featured CBS personnel and showcased a halftime performance by Beyoncé, lending a Super Bowl-style spectacle to the event.
Data from Nielsen revealed that Beyoncé’s halftime show drew the peak audience of the day, with 27 million viewers tuning in. The Ravens-Texans game recorded a 24.3 million Average Minute Audience (AMA), while the Chiefs-Steelers game attracted 24.1 million AMA.
These figures surpassed Amazon Prime’s NFL streaming record of 17.3 million but fell short of the 29.2 million viewers for last year’s CBS broadcast of the Las Vegas Raiders-Chiefs Christmas game.
Despite the decline in overall viewership compared to traditional broadcasts, analysts view Netflix’s debut as a success. Joe Pompliano, a sports business expert, noted that the NFL’s decision to move games from cable networks to Netflix was a calculated risk.
“The NFL received $150 million from Netflix, much higher than what cable networks would have paid for the same games. Dropping from 28.4 million viewers in 2023 to 24.2 million in 2024 is a better outcome than expected,” Pompliano explained in his Huddle Up newsletter.
Netflix’s experiment with NFL games may pave the way for future media rights negotiations, positioning the platform to compete with traditional broadcasters and rival streamers.
While Netflix has avoided season-long rights deals, it recently secured U.S. broadcasting rights for FIFA’s Women’s World Cup tournaments in 2027 and 2031.
Hans Schroeder, NFL Executive Vice President of Media Distribution, expressed satisfaction with the partnership, saying, “We’re thrilled with our first Christmas Gameday on Netflix, reaching a global audience.”
The impact of Netflix’s global broadcast will become clearer when international viewership data is released on December 31. Meanwhile, NBA Christmas Day games on linear television averaged only 5.25 million viewers, highlighting the NFL’s growing dominance in holiday sports.
AFP
