The NFL has officially locked up its media rights through the beginning of the next decade.
The NFL announced Thursday that it has reached media rights deals with NBC, FOX, ESPN/ABC, CBS and Amazon that will begin in the 2023 season and run through 2033. Under the deal, Amazon will exclusively carry Thursday Night Football, ABC will enter the Super Bowl rotation, ESPN+ will get an exclusive game each year, and flexible scheduling will be expanded to Monday Night Football.
According to Sports Business Journal, the deals will add up to $10 billion per year, for a total of $110 billion over the life of the deal.
The Amazon portion of the deal is perhaps the most significant change in sports broadcasting since FOX — then a little-regarded netlet — shocked the industry in acquiring NFL rights 27 years ago. Under the current NFL media deals, which remain in place through 2022, Amazon is one of three outlets simulcasting Thursday night games. Entering negotiations, the expectation had been that Amazon would again simulcast games with NFL Network. Instead, Amazon gets 15 exclusive Thursday night games while NFL Network is left with an undisclosed number of windows.
Amazon has thus far carried only one exclusive NFL broadcast — Cardinals-49ers on a Saturday afternoon last season. In total, only three NFL games have ever been carried exclusively via a streaming provider.
Beyond Amazon, ESPN+ and NBC’s Peacock will each carry a number of exclusive regular season games. ESPN+ will get one International Series game per year starting in 2022 and Peacock one game per year from 2023-28. ESPN+, Paramount+ and Peacock will have simulcast rights for a number of games on their affiliated networks (ESPN/ABC, CBS and NBC, respectively).
As for the linear networks, ESPN/ABC will enter the Super Bowl rotation for the first time since ABC aired Super Bowl 40 in 2006, with both networks carrying the game in 2026 and 2030. The networks will also add a Divisional Round game for the first time in their respective histories. During the regular season, the ESPN/ABC schedule will expand from 17 to 23 games per year, including three weeks per season in which ESPN and ABC will each carry separate Monday night games. Starting this coming season, ESPN will carry a Saturday doubleheader on the final weekend of the season, with those games being simulcast on ABC once the new deal kicks in two years from now.
ESPN/ABC will also get flex scheduling rights for Monday Night Football starting in Week 12 of the season.
FOX, CBS and NBC will each get three Super Bowl games over the life of the deal — four for FOX and NBC including the remaining Super Bowl games in the current contract — and FOX will add Christmas Day games when the schedule allows.
[News from NFL, Fox Sports, NBC Sports, CBS Sports, ESPN PR]
