The NFL is in everyone’s crosshairs as they circle potential new television deals that could rake in billions of dollars. And although they are starting to take political fire, the league is holding firm.
At the heart of the struggle is the impending fight between traditional broadcast networks and streaming tech giants. Fox and Rupert Murdoch have taken the lead in trying to use their relationship with the Trump administration to pressure the NFL into preserving their network heritage and resisting the temptation (and infinite cash) to put more games on streaming platforms.
The NFL is now under pressure from the FCC and DOJ in that regard. Even Donald Trump has publicly complained about the cost and difficulty of watching games, although unsurprisingly, he didn’t have his facts straight.
But the league continues to put forth the narrative that they are only going where the fans are and that the wide majority of their games are still accessible through over-the-air networks.
Amidst the 2026 schedule reveal, the NFL resisted any criticism that has come their way in comments from league media executive Hans Schroeder, via ESPN.
While discussing this week’s schedule release with reporters, NFL executive vice president of media distribution Hans Schroeder on Friday suggested the league has no intention of pulling back from its partnerships with streaming services.
“We love our model,” he said. “We think we have the most fan-friendly model there is of any sport or entertainment as far as distribution.”
The NFL airs 87% of its games on free broadcast networks CBS, NBC, FOX and ABC, according to league officials. But Schroeder argued that the league is actually meeting consumers where they are in an era of cord-cutting by adding games on platforms such as Netflix.
“We think broadcast [networks] have been an incredible home,” he said. “And, now, we also know fans are increasingly spending their time on other platforms as well. They tune into broadcast for the NFL and that’s where we want to be. But we also want to be on these platforms with a limited amount of our games where we know our NFL fans are already as well.
“When we’re going onto Netflix, we’re going onto a platform that is already massively adopted and a huge number of viewers on that platform already, including a huge number of NFL fans.”
The NFL seems to be readying its defense against any government intervention by claiming that streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon are readily accessible and already watched by a large percentage of the American population. There is some merit in that, given that Netflix is reportedly north of 80 million subscribers in the United States. By comparison, ESPN (with a full slate of Monday Night Football games) is down at 60 million pay-TV subscribers.
However, the NFL’s repeated claim of 87% of games on free broadcast networks is a bit misleading. Fans can’t watch all those Sunday afternoon games all at once, and if you want to watch an out-of-market game, you have to pay a small fortune for a Sunday Ticket subscription. But another issue rising up with the NFL’s continued expansion of standalone and streaming games is that it continues to devalue that supposedly premium product and the traditional Sunday afternoon windows.
While the NFL is certainly entitled to defend its model, the most “fan-friendly model” in sports does have an easy counter by the fact that IndyCar televises every race on the Fox broadcast network. And the truth is, the influence of streamers is only growing. In addition to Amazon’s full season of Thursday Night Football rights, Netflix is increasing its haul to a total of five games in 2026.
Given the economic realities of the broadcast networks compared to the tech giants, and the NFL’s unflinching thirst for revenue, something is going to have to give in these new television deals.
About Matt Yoder