The National Football League is reportedly close to a streaming rights deal with Netflix that would give the company Christmas Games for the 2024 season. If that happens, the cost of watching all the NFL games this fall will be even costlier for football fans.
The NFL already entered the year with agreements to sell the streaming rights to NFL games in 2024 to Amazon Prime Video, Peacock, ESPN+ and YouTube TV. This is in addition to the billions of dollars the league receives from Disney, CBS, Fox and NBC for the broadcasting rights to games.
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Amid a growing push from commissioner Roger Goodell and team owners to expand the regular season to 18 games in 19 weeks before the collective bargaining agreement expires in 2030, the NFL is now close to putting more of its regular-season games on a subscription service.
Puck’s John Ourand recently reported that Netflix will be the “likely winner” of a bidding war for the rights to a pair of NFL games on Christmas Day this year. While a deal isn’t finalized, the streaming service has been after the rights to NFL games for years and is now well-positioned to make it happen.
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How much does it cost to watch every NFL game?
If the streaming rights deal for NFL games on Christmas Day goes through, it will cost football fans upwards of $850 to have access to every NFL game in 2024.
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The estimated cost includes access to NFL Sunday Ticket, which is only available as a $359 add-on subscription for people with YouTube TV who are already paying $72.99 for the service. It’s worth noting that YouTube is currently offering a discount for NFL Sunday Ticket 2024, allowing customers to buy the NFL package now for $289 with NFL RedZone included or $249 without Red Zone. However, that offer expires on Thursday, May 16.
That’s the best value in terms of the quantity of NFL games you can watch in 204, but it still doesn’t give fans anything close to complete access to every regular-season game.
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For those who want to watch the Green Bay Packers vs Philadelphia Eagles game in Brazil in Week 1, that requires paying $5.99 for Peacock. While that could be a one-time payment in September, multiple games on Peacock means paying it again the next time the streaming service has a game.
Beyond that, access to the Thursday Night Football games required paying Amazon $8.99 per month for access to Prime Video. Ordinarily, that could be canceled after paying for access to Thursday Night Football games from September through December, but Prime Video is also getting a Wild Card game in January.
Throw in the $6.99 charge to Netflix in order for fans to have access to both Christmas Day games and the $10.99 monthly charge for those same fans to watch the NFL International Series on ESPN, that pushes the total to $855, or just over $500 if you don’t want NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV.