How the NFL Landed on Streaming Services
By Movieguide® Contributor
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell recently opened up about the football league’s presence on streaming and what that means for the industry.
While at a party at billionaire Bill Gates’ house, Goodell began talking with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, outlining how the NFL and Amazon could join forces.
“I was just talking about our content and what it could do for their technology. I distinctly remember, he was wearing sunglasses and he put them down on the end of his nose, and he said, ‘Now you’ve got my attention,’” Goodell told The Hollywood Reporter.
The result? In 2017, Amazon created THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL.
Then, in May 2021, Goodell and Rolapp landed a major deal as NFL streaming rights went to NBCUniversal, Disney/ESPN, Paramount, Fox and Amazon. In 2022, YouTube joined the mix and would pay $2 billion annually.
“The technology is changing. The platforms are changing. The economy is changing. We have to be ahead of that strategy at all times so that we are where our fans are, on the platforms they want to be on,” Goodell stated of the contracts.
Despite the groundbreaking deals, Goodell revealed his biggest concern.
“Can you handle that many people at one time?” Goodell said of just the Amazon deal. “That’s always a concern with these platforms. And fortunately, they’ve all invested dramatically and proved they can do that.”
Last season, Amazon “took over the [Thursday Night Football] package exclusively,” the Hollywood Reporter added.
In a recent interview with CNBC, Goodell addressed that the viewership for the season declined on Amazon.
“This is a long term play for us. We are thrilled with what we had last year. We made some changes to the schedule…I expect that that will continue to grow in a popular way,” he explained.
“This platform allows our consumers and fans to do things that you can’t do on the linear feed,” Goodell added.
LightShed Partners analyst Rich Greenfield stated, “The NFL has done a very good job of trying to extend rather than replace. Every media company needs to focus on the reach of their content. I don’t think anyone’s done a better job expanding reach than the NFL.”
Goodell added, “We were a big part of the growth of broadcast TV — it was a mutually beneficial relationship. We reached a much broader audience, and it helped them develop to the point where we even developed a fourth network with Fox in the early ’90s. And that wasn’t just a sports network, that was a network. Now it’s streaming, and I think a large part of that is advertising and subscription and dual revenue streams, and that’s the case here.”
