Netflix strikes a three-year deal with the NFL to stream two new Christmas Day games this season, and “at least one game” in 2025 and in 2026
The streaming giant lands the league's two new Christmas Day games, beginning this season. — Netflix will stream live NFL games, beginning this season.
Context & Ripple Effects
The agreement extends a path already visible in the NFL’s streaming distribution: Amazon had previously secured rights to stream Thursday Night Football, making Netflix’s holiday package another move of premium football inventory into subscription video. Amazon’s earlier Thursday Night Football streaming deal provided the relevant precedent.
The deal also gives Netflix a recurring live tentpole rather than a one-off event. Later coverage tied its live-programming push to advertising, while record Christmas Day streaming use in 2025 shows why the holiday window matters to platforms and the league.
First-order effects
- Netflix adds two NFL games to its 2024 Christmas Day lineup and secures an annual holiday-game presence through 2026, requiring it to deliver a high-stakes live broadcast product.
- The NFL gains another major streaming outlet for new Christmas Day inventory, broadening distribution beyond the platform relationship it had already built with Amazon.
Second-order effects
- Netflix can package a predictable, high-attention live window for advertisers; subsequent reporting estimated that its first two NFL games generated substantial US ad sales, underscoring the commercial logic of the rights. Netflix’s ad-business case for live programming
- Other streamers seeking marquee sports rights face a clearer competitive benchmark: NFL games can be used not only to attract viewers but also to support advertising and platform positioning.
Third-order effects
- If recurring holiday NFL games continue to migrate to streamers, premium sports rights will increasingly function as a distribution and advertising asset for subscription platforms, rather than solely as linear-TV programming.
- The pattern raises the value of reliable cross-platform audience measurement: Amazon’s Thursday Night Football measurement agreement marked an early step toward treating streamed sports as comparable TV inventory. Amazon’s Nielsen measurement arrangement
The trend: Streaming services are using recurring live sports windows to build advertising scale and make their platforms indispensable during peak viewing moments.