The NFL has officially announced that YouTube will exclusively stream its Week 1 International Series game from Brazil.
Google-owned YouTube and YouTube TV will carry the Week 1 NFL International Series game from Brazil, it was announced Tuesday. The league has not officially announced the matchup as of yet, but per Front Office Sports, the Chargers are expected to host the Chiefs. YouTube winning the bidding war, which reportedly also included Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon, had become a foregone conclusion.
The YouTube stream will be available for free globally — except in Canada and “certain other countries” — and with a YouTube TV subscription. As is always the case for NFL games on cable and streaming, it will also be available to watch on local over-the-air affiliates in the home markets.
According to Jacob Feldman of Sportico, NBC will produce the telecast. While YouTube TV owns rights to NFL Sunday Ticket, it has never before carried its own NFL production. CBS produced last year’s Christmas games for Netflix.
The NFL has in recent years been opportunistic in creating new deals outside of its existing 2021 media rights package. This particular window — the Friday of Week 1 — only exists as a result of a calendar quirk. The NFL is legally barred under the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 from scheduling Friday and Saturday night games during the high school and college football seasons (defined as from the second Friday in September to the second Saturday in December), but because of the early Labor Day this year and last, Week 1 falls outside of that prohibition.
YouTube joins Netflix (which is in the second of a three-year deal for Christmas Day games), Amazon, Peacock and ESPN+ in carrying at least one exclusive NFL game window this season. Unlike the other four streamers, the YouTube contest figures to be the easiest by far to access. YouTube, according to an estimate by measurement company Nielsen, accounted for 12% of streaming viewership in March — more than any other individual company. Disney was second at 10.5%, Paramount third (8.5%), and NBC Universal (8.0%) and Netflix (7.9%) rounded out the top five.
