A change in strategy that is intended to be progressive and… cautious, with Netflix remaining for the moment still aloof from the big fight for sports rights between traditional cable distributors – for whom maintaining subscriptions is a key issue – and the new players in a very competitive US market (Amazon, Apple, etc.).
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It was in November 2023 that the broadcaster experimented for the first time in the field of broadcasting a live sporting event with the Netflix Cup. A golf competition that she created from scratch and which featured professionals of the discipline and… Formula 1 drivers, all this a few days before the United States Grand Prix in Las Vegas.
The NFL too
Then, on March 3, 2024, it was a tennis exhibition match between Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz, called the “Netflix Slam” and won in a super tie-break by the second, which caught the attention, not only of amateurs of tennis but of all sports fans.
Two months later, the leaders of the famous streaming platform formalized an agreement with the NFL, the American football league (which represents a colossal market), for the broadcast of two matches at Christmas and four other matches.
Monetize advertising
Or the first purchase of rights to an official competition, at the rate of… 75 million dollars per match, a few weeks after having concluded a ten-year deal with the WWE (specialized in the organization of wrestling matches) for an amount of five billion dollars.
“There is no annual event, sports or otherwise, that compares to the NFL in terms of viewership,” explained the head of content, Bela Bajaria, in a press release.
The challenge for Netflix, which has 283 million subscribers, will now be to monetize the advertising spots it broadcasts. Without making too much noise, the platform continues to advance its pawns and gain ground…
