Why Netflix is going big on live sports with the NFL and WWE
January 21, 2025
Netflix has cemented its reputation as a leader in streaming entertainment. Its portfolio of scripted shows, films, and documentaries capturing large audiences worldwide.
However, 2024 marked a pivotal moment for the platform as it entered the live sports landscape, it broadcast two Christmas Day National Football League (NFL) games.
Alongside a landmark partnership with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and winning the broadcast rights in the United States for the 2027 and 2031 Women's World Cups, the streaming giant has demonstrated its ambition to become the dominant online platform for live sports.
Netflix's live sport strategy an unexpected U-turn
Stepping into the foray of live sports is not new for streaming platforms. Both Apple TV and Amazon have done the same, with Amazon broadcasting life soccer matches for the last decade.
Both platforms have rights to show various competitions and events. Amazon UK, for example, holds English Premier League rights packages, and Amazon's European arm, EU Sarl, owns the rights to show Champions League matches. Apple TV holds the global rights to showcase Major League Soccer (MLS).
Yet, as recently as December 2022, Netflix's co-CEO and chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, told a UBS Global TMT Conference that the company had "not seen a profit path to renting big sports."
"We’re not anti-sports. We’re just pro-profit," he said, adding that Netflix "can get twice as big without sports."
According to Jochen Losch, CEO of JL Sports Investment, Netflix's U-Turn and entry into the live sports market came about because of an advertising-supported package it began offering to customers in November 2022.
"Now they have moved also to the advertising business. All of a sudden, they need advertisers," Losch, who has spent 25 years working in sports media rights markets, told DW.
"Netflix realized that live sports are one of the last things in the world that generates huge audiences and provides the most eyeballs, which you can't produce from anything else.
"It's also the last 'appointment TV' event. You cannot choose when you watch a soccer or American football match. You have to watch it when it is on, which creates its own hype."
A global reach like no other
Though it has been slow to welcome live sports, Netflix boasts a worldwide reach of 283 million subscribers and a cash-content budget of $17 billion (€16.5 billion) annually.
This makes the streamer an attractive prospect for partnering while making live events a comparatively small acquisition for the company in its yearly cash content budget.
In October 2024, the NFL entered a three-year partnership with Netflix to showcase two Christmas Day games. According to Netflix, the total cost of streaming the games between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Pittsburgh Steelers and between the Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans was the equivalent of one of their usual medium-to-large films.
In return, the games gained the NFL huge viewership figures, with spectators from 218 countries and territories tuning in, as each game drew 30 million viewers worldwide.
"With Netflix’s global distribution, coupled with Christmas being Netflix’s biggest day, they were an ideal partner for the NFL as the league seeks to become a global sport," Alexander Steinforth, general manager of NFL Germany, told DW.
The games helped make it Netflix’s most-watched Christmas Day ever in the United States, and the NFL games amassed over one billion impressions across Netflix and NFL global handles on social media.
"We are immensely excited about what this partnership has in store," Steinforth said of the Christmas Day package.
Netflix was similarly enthusiastic.
"Opportunities like NFL Christmas games don't come up that often," a Netflix spokesperson told DW. "Netflix has always been entrepreneurial and bold in leaning into opportunities that give the most value to our members."
A monumental WWE deal to launch 2025
Now, Netflix has added World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) to its lineup, a deal reported to be worth $5 billion (€4.8 billion).
Monday Night Raw, the WWE's popular weekly wrestling show, debuted in January 2025, a move to streaming that its chief content officer Paul Levesque, known as the former wrestling superstar Triple H, has called "as colossal as WrestleMania."
The professional wrestling circuit has a dedicated fanbase. The live broadcast of the inaugural "Monday Night Raw" drawing 4.9 million viewers globally.
"WWE is great sports entertainment. It’s all about the drama of sport, which is Netflix’s sweet spot," the Netflix spokesperson said.
"It’s another area where we can deliver enormous value for our members as well as rights holders and talent."
For Netflix, a crucial part of why the WWE became such an attractive prospect was understanding that more families watch WWE together than the NBA, NASCAR, MLB, MLS, NHL or PGA Golf.
WWE is also tapped into Netflix's target demographic (18 to 34 years old) as the No.1 sports channel on YouTube based on subscribers and lifetime video views. It also has more than 1 billion followers across its social media platforms.
"We want to continue to create unmissable live events for our members that generate global water cooler moments," the Netflix spokesperson added.
In an era in which streaming wars are heating up, Netflix’s live sports gamble may prove to be its next blockbuster.
Edited by: Chuck Penfold