close
close

first Drop

Com TW NOw News 2024

How to Watch This NFL Season? More Games to Be Streamed Exclusively
news

How to Watch This NFL Season? More Games to Be Streamed Exclusively

The 2024 NFL season kicks off on Thursday (Sept. 5) when the reigning Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs take on the conference rival Baltimore Ravens in NBC’s (and Peacock’s) annual Kickoff Classic. The game is the first of 272 regular-season games over 18 weeks, followed by 13 postseason games culminating in Super Bowl LIX.

All NFL games are broadcast and/or streamed. This season, more games will be streamed on more SVOD platforms. As a result, NFL fans may have to shell out a little more money this season if they want to see their favorite teams in action.

Last season, the average age of NFL viewers on linear television was 55.4, and the NFL hopes that streaming more games will help attract younger viewers.

This season, there will be four SVOD providers that will exclusively stream one or more NFL games: Amazon Prime Video, Peacock, ESPN+ and newcomer Netflix. According to Front Office Sports every week during the 2024 season, at least one match will be streamed exclusively. Here is a breakdown.

Amazon Prime Video

Amazon Prime Video begins its third season as the home of Thursday Night Football. This season, Prime Video will exclusively stream 15 Thursday night football games beginning on September 12 (Buffalo at Miami) and ending on December 26 (Seattle at Chicago).

Last season, Thursday Night Football averaged 11.86 million viewers, a year-over-year increase of +24%. Amazon is reportedly paying the NFL $1 billion per year to stream Thursday Night Football through the 2033 season.

For the second season in a row, Prime Video will also exclusively stream a Black Friday game (Las Vegas vs. Kansas City). Last year’s game (Miami vs. New York Jets) averaged 9.61 million viewers. The e-commerce giant reportedly paid the NFL around $100 million to exclusively stream a game on Black Friday, one of the busiest holidays of the year.

Prime Video will also stream an NFL Wild Card game for the first time in January. Amazon is reportedly paying the NFL more than $150 million to stream the game exclusively. Prime Video will also stream NBA games live starting in the 2025-26 season. Starting in January 2026, Prime Video will stream an NBA doubleheader on Thursday nights at the end of Thursday Night Football coverage.

A regular monthly subscription to Prime Video costs $15. An annual subscription costs $139. A subscription to the standalone streaming service costs $9 per month.

Peacock

During the first week (Friday, September 6) of the NFL season, NBCU’s Peacock will exclusively stream a game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers from São Paulo, Brazil.

Last season, Peacock reportedly paid the NFL $110 million to exclusively live stream a Wild Card game (Miami vs. Kansas City). The game averaged a record 23 million viewers, and Peacock reportedly added three million new subscribers. Additionally, Peacock will live stream every NFL game airing on NBC this season, including the Kickoff Classic, all Sunday Night Football games, Thanksgiving night games, and postseason games.

During the Paris Olympics, Peacock streamed 5,000 hours of coverage and averaged 4 to 5 million viewers per day. NBCU reported that Peacock added 2.8 million new subscribers. Peacock’s monthly subscription starts at $8, with an ad-free version costing $14.

ESPN+

This season ESPN+ will exclusively stream one Monday Night Football on October 21 (Los Angeles Chargers at Arizona). ESPN+ will also stream many (but not all) Monday Night Football games that air on ESPN and/or ABC. For the postseason, ESPN+ will live stream one Wild Card game and one Divisional Round game that also air on ESPN and ABC. ESPN+ costs $10.99 per month or $109.99 per year. It is also available through the Disney bundle.

Netflix

The biggest change to the NFL’s regular season schedule was the addition of Netflix exclusively streaming two games live on Christmas Day. It was reported that Netflix is ​​paying the NFL $75 million per game to live stream two games on Christmas Day through the 2026 regular season.

This season, the Christmas Day games are Kansas City vs. Pittsburgh at 1:00 p.m. ET, followed by Baltimore vs. Houston at 4:30 p.m. ET. A monthly Netflix subscription with ads costs $6.99 per month, while a standard HD video monthly rate costs $15.49 per month and is ad-free. Other subscription packages are available.

Paramount+

Decisive+ streams live every game broadcast on CBS. This includes all Sunday afternoon games, Thanksgiving Day games, and postseason games. Paramount+ Essentials costs $7.99 per month or $59.99 per year. (Paramount+ with Showtime is more expensive.)

YouTube TV

For the second year in a row, YouTube TV will exclusively stream NFL Sunday Ticket. The subscription service will let viewers watch more than 160 out-of-market NFL games on Sunday afternoons on Fox and CBS. YouTube is paying the NFL $14 billion to stream Sunday Ticket for seven seasons.

The annual Sunday Ticket subscription costs $479.99 or if bundled with the NFL RedZone channel it is $519.99. The price of NFL Sunday Ticket with a YouTube TV subscription is $635.96 over four months. At the end of the four-month NFL season, the monthly subscription cost for the basic YouTube TV plan is $72.99.

NFL+

The NFL’s own streaming provider NFL+ allows users to stream all national or local market games, regardless of the television network or streaming provider. The games can only be viewed on mobile devices such as phones and tablets. NFL+ Premium provides access to the NFL RedZone and other features such as replays. An NFL+ subscription costs $6.99 per month and $49.99 per year. NFL+ Premium costs $14.99 per month or $99.99 per year.

Television competitions

For televised games, broadcast networks NBC, CBS, Fox and ABC will still carry most games. These will require a monthly MVPD/vMVPD subscription or a digital antenna for a low-cost one-time fee. Cable networks ESPN and the NFL Network would require an MVPD/vMVPD subscription.

Fubo TV, a vMVPD, also offers access to ESPN, NFL Network, Fox, ABC, CBS, and NBC, along with dozens of other live channels. Fubo TV monthly subscriptions start at $80. NFL games on broadcast/cable TV can also be streamed on other vMVPDs such as Sling TV, DirecTV Stream, Hulu Plus Live TV, and YouTube TV. Costs and number of networks available vary.

Streaming bundles

Venu Sports, a partnership between Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery (which would stream NFL games on Fox, ESPN and ABC) had planned to roll out its service before the start of the 2024 NFL season. Last month, Fubo TV won an injunction against it to temporarily halt the planned launch date. Venu had set the monthly subscription fee at $42.99.