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As the NFL heads into their final week of regular season play, there’s much to discuss around the league both looking back on the recent success from their Christmas Day games on Netflix (NFLX), and also looking forward to what’s in store for the sport in 2025.
This week on Yahoo Finance Sports Report, host Joe Pompliano chats with Yahoo Sports Senior NFL Reporter Jori Epstein about all things NFL. Following the Christmas Day games that were streamed on Netflix, the streamer reported both the Ravens-Texans and Chiefs-Steelers games averaged over 24M viewers for each game. Pompliano asks Epstein what she thought was the NFL’s goal by electing to air these on a streamer versus broadcast television or even cable. Epstein attributes the league’s decision to three aspects: increasing their demographic, media rights, and international game play.
While broadcast television primarily reaches people of certain ages, opting to stream on Netflix shows the league wants “to meet younger viewers where they’re at,” and increase the demographic range of people watching the sport.
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Media rights is another factor. With the NFL renegotiating deals again in a few years, Epstein says they are “trying to generate as much revenue as possible,” with hopes to increase the amount of bidders vying for the league’s broadcast rights.
The third aspect is the growth of the NFL on an international scale. “They’ve already increased their international slate from up to five [games] a year to up to nine a year going into 2025,” Epstein explains. “The more viewers they have interested in [playing internationally], the more they're going to be able to create that revenue when they go play in those countries.”
Plus, Pompliano takes a look at some of the most viral moments from college football's Pop-Tart Bowl, which took place last weekend, where the Iowa State Cyclones defeated the Miami Hurricanes 42-41.
Yahoo Finance Sports Report with Joe Pompliano, a vodcast brought to you by Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports, looks beyond the latest sports business headlines, analyzes all the need-to-know news - the teams, trades, and billion dollar deals - so you and your portfolio will win BIG.
Yahoo Finance Sports Report is developed and produced by Lauren Pokedoff.