Netflix has known as an audible and now plans to pursue a Sunday NFL package deal following its profitable Christmas Day debut final season.
Bela Bajaria, the chief content material officer for the streaming big, confirmed the technique shift on a latest episode of “The City” podcast.
“I undoubtedly need the Sunday (afternoon) video games,” Bajaria stated when requested which package deal she could be all in favour of pursuing when NFL media rights turn into obtainable.
The NFL’s present Sunday afternoon rights offers with CBS and Fox run by way of the 2033 season. Nonetheless, the NFL has opt-out clauses in most of its agreements after the 2029 season, in line with Entrance Workplace Sports activities.
Bajaria’s public feedback are in stark distinction to remarks made final month by Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos throughout a fourth-quarter earnings name with business analysts.
Sarandos known as the economics of pursuing a full-season, big-league sports activities schedule “extraordinarily difficult.”
“If there was a path the place we might truly make the economics work, for each us and the leagues, we will surely discover (it),” Sarandos stated. “However proper now, we consider that the dwell occasions enterprise is the place we actually wish to be.”
Netflix’s Christmas doubleheader — Kansas Metropolis Chiefs-Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens-Houston Texans — broke NFL streaming data with common audiences of greater than 24 million viewers.
–Subject Degree Media