How Streaming Still Factors Into The NFL’s Immediate Future (Even If It’s Not Required)

In the not-too-distant future, the battle between live sports and streaming will reach an impasse. Streaming needs live sports to keep growing, while live sports need streaming to reach younger audiences and provide incremental value to advertisers.

With its various regional sports networks (RSNs) primarily dedicated to MLB, NHL and NBA game inventory, Sinclair is about to dive headlong into streaming to save its sports investment. Now, those leagues need streaming as well, and all three already exist on streaming services in various forms. But the primary method of watching those sports remains linear TV for now, even as future consumption clearly demands a greater emphasis on streaming for all three leagues, with teams having anywhere between three and seven games in a given week.

Noticeably, however, these concerns around streaming are less pressing for the NFL.

Owning a day of the week already with fall Sundays and peppering in games on Thursdays, Mondays and sometimes Saturdays during the regular season, the NFL commands TV attention (something hammered home by the 150 million cross-platform viewers that tuned into this year’s Super Bowl, according to iSpot) better than anything else. Yet, as streaming’s footprint grows, there are opportunities to hedge on streaming while avoiding cannibalizing the primary broadcasts — the same way the league has done with simulcasts in the past (NFL Network/ FOX, ESPN/ABC, ESPN/Manning Cast, CBS/Nickelodeon).

The NFL’s streaming footprint is currently pretty cut-and-dry. With the Verizon live game streaming deal disappearing going forward, the league’s streaming now consists of vMVPDs and TV rights partner apps (Peacock, Paramount+, WatchESPN, Fox Sports), plus Amazon Prime Video for Thursday night games.

As Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand recently detailed, there are chances that list could also grow in the next couple years. ESPN+ reportedly gets an exclusive international game (there are five in 2022), plus Amazon wants a Black Friday game, though the NFL hasn’t greenlit the idea. The international game would be the biggest draw yet for ESPN+, and a likely boon for subscriber numbers, even if some are only temporary.

But Amazon seems unlikely to break through on Black Friday with college football sort of owning that day to-date, and the NFL likely aiming to avoid watering down the Thanksgiving product (reliably among the most-watched regular season games each year).

So Amazon’s current options to grow its footprint are limited in terms of days of the week, but it could go the “megacast” route and host a number of different options for fans to watch on Thursdays. Along with the primary Amazon Prime Video feed, Twitch could serve as either a former players’ feed or just a general younger audience-focused broadcast. Even without Twitch, Prime Video could potentially have various options (something StreamLayer knows a little bit about) — home feeds for each team, fantasy sports overlays, and live betting broadcasts as well. These engaging approaches can be further enhanced with more addressable advertising for Amazon to get the most out of its investment, and maximize what it can do for brands.

Simulcasts, in general, aren’t always successful, but they also need a clear plan and differentiation. ESPN’s “megacast” approaches to big games have potentially cut into advertiser value by segmenting a large audience, but they’re also a winning approach because they’re catering to a wider swath of fans looking for different, customized ways to watch. Existing rights holders can use their respective streaming platforms with weekly simulcasts as a way to better understand their audience (more value for advertisers), increase the number of engaged viewers, and if they’re first-to-market with an approach that works, they can actively draw in more and maybe even new viewers. Nick’s kids-focused playoff specials and the Manning Cast are just the tip of the iceberg here.

There’s also a chance for more streaming by way of whatever the next NFL Sunday Ticket package looks like. DirecTV currently holds that contract, but could find itself sharing the new deal, or could even get completely outspent by the likes of either Amazon or Apple. SBJ’s John Ourand reported last week that according to sources, the price tag for Sunday Ticket could wind up topping $2 billion per year. Maybe Disney has that sort of money to spend with the service hosted on ESPN+ (similar to how the comparable NHL.tv was folded in starting last October). The most likely outcome would seem to be Amazon or Apple’s deep pockets shelling out for it, though.

The NFL’s lucrative new TV deal sets it up well for the next decade with or without streaming, but what the league’s fortunes look like in the 2030s and beyond could very much depend on how it handles streaming in the short-term. Laying that foundation both optimizes revenue streams now, and conditions consumer behaviors for the future. With everyone trying to find ways to win over young audiences and convert them into your next generation of diehard viewers, the NFL has a unique advantage over its peers, if it chooses to use it.