Netflix has officially acquired the NFL’s Christmas Day slate this season and at least one game on the holiday in the subsequent two years.
The NFL and Netflix have entered into a three-year deal in which the streamer will carry at least one Christmas Day game each season, including both of this year’s contests, it was announced Wednesday. Radio host and NFL analyst Boomer Esiason was first to report that the Netflix was a possibility for the Christmas games.
The NFL announced later Wednesday that the games will be Chiefs-Steelers at 1 PM ET and Ravens-Texans and 4:30.
Prior reporting by Esiason and John Ourand of Puck had focused only on this year’s Christmas games, making the additional games in 2025 and 2026 a new development. The Netflix deal does not preclude the other NFL broadcasters from carrying Christmas games in those years, and one can reasonably expect Amazon — a late bidder on this year’s contests — to carry a game next season, when the holiday falls on a Thursday.
The NFL deal marks a milestone for Netflix, which to this point has rarely carried any live programming whatsoever, much less live sports. Once known for sending DVDs through the mail, the company that ushered in the streaming era had largely restricted itself to ad-free, on-demand programming, ceding live, ad-supported fare like live sports to competitors such as Amazon Prime and Apple TV.
It is likely that the NFL deal will result in Netflix submitting to traditional Nielsen measurement for the first time, as Amazon and Peacock before it.
For the NFL, the Netflix deal creates another powerful media partner. The league is now in business with three of the four “FANG” tech companies — Amazon, Netflix and Google — to say nothing of its traditional media partners such as Disney and Comcast. The league that is by far the most committed to traditional broadcast television has also been the most aggressive in the streaming space, and will now have games that are streamed exclusively via four separate platforms in 2024 — ESPN+, Peacock, Amazon and Netflix.
The Netflix deal was announced just hours ahead of the NFL’s schedule release.
