Netflix is becoming the home for the NFL’s regular-season games—Christmas, Thanksgiving—forcing fans to juggle subscriptions. And they are noticing. In an EssentiallySports Newsletter poll titled “Do you think streaming platforms are stealing the essence of the sport?”, 48.6% voted yes, with another 22.8% on the fence. Yes, broadcast TV still holds a sizeable chunk of all NFL games, but like the festival games, yet another big-ticket game is largely heading to streaming.

The NFL has now signed another regular-season deal with Netflix for the Week 1 game from Australia. The San Francisco 49ers will face the Los Angeles Rams at Melbourne Cricket Ground, and the game will air live at 8:35 p.m. ET on September 10, 2026, with NBC handling production. Yet fans will still need Netflix to watch it, which leads to the question: Is this really an expansion for profit or a brutal hit towards cable TV?

Just take Netflix, for example, which is reportedly paying about $150 million every year to air NFL Christmas Day games under a three-year agreement. Then, even Amazon Prime signed a deal worth around $1 billion per year for exclusive rights to “Thursday Night Football” through 2033. This can give the impression that network broadcasting is losing out on the festival games, but Roger Goodell countered the claim with a number.

The NFL commissioner had said, “88 percent of our games, roughly, are on broadcast television. The other 12 percent are on platforms that are incredibly widely distributed, and people are already there. Netflix is not a small distribution. In fact, you can make an argument that it’s bigger than some of the networks.”

Too many subscriptions are spoiling the fans’ interest

The reality is, if important games get moved to streaming, fans are, in a way, forced to buy the subscription and watch them. Instead of one simple place to watch games, they now need multiple subscriptions, which makes watching the sport more complicated and frustrating, particularly for the older generation. Individuals around the 50-60 year age bracket who know very little about technology may find searching, subscribing, and streaming a game an unnecessary tech task. So, it’s pretty evident why there’s a feeling that network broadcasting is losing its grip.

As games are split across Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Peacock, YouTube, and traditional TV, fans feel like they are “running from app to app” just to follow one season. The dissatisfaction is clearly visible in Reddit forums, too. The differing platforms are not the only qualm.

Under a post named “Rams vs. Whiners in Australia, Week 1 Game to be a broadcast on Netflix,” fans expressed their anger, saying, “as bad as cable again,” because instead of making things easier, it feels more crowded and confusing. The general sentiment there was one of angst.

A clear example is the reaction to last year’s Netflix NFL Christmas Day broadcast between the Commanders and Cowboys. Fans complained about buffering, poor picture quality, and awkward broadcast choices, like in-game interviews interrupting live action.

Per the thread on r/Netflix titled ‘Netflix viewers furious over streaming issues during NFL Christmas coverage’, viewers’ sentiment was that “Netflix always has issues with live events.” They found it frustrating, showing that streaming is not always reliable for live sports.

So, various streaming platforms are not just killing network broadcasting and fans’ interest, but also taking a big hit on their wallets and ruining the watching experience.

Full NFL access across all platforms costs approximately $800+ per season. That creates frustration because the old TV model was one payment, one place, and everyone watched together. But now it’s all over the place.

Looks like the NFL isn’t stopping with media deals anytime soon

Now, the NFL is also close to a deal with YouTube to show about five games. This happened because ESPN changed its agreement after taking over the NFL Network. As part of that change, ESPN returned the “Monday Night Football” doubleheader games to the NFL, which left extra games available for the league to sell again.

Because of this, YouTube is likely to get those games, but the final details like price, how long the deal will last, and which exact games will be shown are not decided yet. YouTube’s likely deal signals how streaming platforms are becoming the future and why fans feel the old cable system is dying. It might hold the largest percentage, but the control is already gone.

That’s where the US government took things into its hands.

How can this investigation turn things around for the NFL?

The NFL is now facing serious pressure from the U.S. government over how fans watch football games and how expensive it has become. The Department of Justice has started investigating whether the NFL’s TV and streaming deals hurt consumers, with only local games still airing for free on regular television.

Congress could vote to remove the NFL’s special legal protection under the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961. That law currently allows the league to sell all game broadcast rights together as one package. If lawmakers remove that protection, the NFL could face lawsuits and bigger legal challenges over its TV and streaming deals.

Legal expert Frank Hawkins explained the entire situation, shedding light on how things can turn overnight for the league.

“The NFL can sell its games to whoever it wants; they just have to be ready to defend it in an antitrust case,” Hawkins said.

One can bring a more stable outlook for fans, but you can’t really stop streaming platforms from expanding entirely. While young generations are pretty much familiar with the latest technology, very few of them actually find it interesting to watch it on the field or on TV. Meanwhile, older generations are losing interest because so many platforms are taking over.

First, it was special holiday games, and now regular-season games. But the keyword is slowly. The numbers do show that there isn’t a large shift to safely claim that network broadcasting is dying, but it is slowly losing its prominence.