The NFL deciding to allow flexing for Thursday Night Football games from weeks 13-17 has been the subject of plenty of discussions, and that continued Wednesday on 670 The Score in Chicago with Mike Florio.
Florio was asked by Dan Bernstein about the motive behind the league choosing to add Thursday games into the flex mix, and Florio said it’s about making sure Amazon gets as many eyeballs as possible.
“This is about getting maximum numbers to Amazon,” Florio said. “And they don’t want to have the full season average get cratered by a late-season game between two bad teams without a great quarterback that nobody wants to watch during the holiday season.”
Now even with YouTube now being the home to NFL Sunday Ticket, the league is shifting more focus on streaming as viewers continue to cut the cord.
“This is all about the looming and ongoing pivot that our entire society is experiencing from TV to streaming,” Florio said. “It explains the two exclusive Peacock games this year, and I work for Peacock.”
Florio added that even though the NFL is at the beginning of this newest media rights deal, the added attention on streaming is viewed as a tune-up for the next deal. Florio believes the league will be negotiating a new contract by the end of the decade.
“They want to have streaming companies that will do what networks traditionally have done which is pay way too much – more than they should – for this content,” he said.
Florio mentioned the idea that the league floated about going direct to consumer with Sunday Ticket. But the league recognizes that because the TV networks make the league and themselves so much money, the asking price was too good to pass up.
“They’re hoping that streaming platforms will do the same thing, and one way you get them to do that is to deliver massive audiences,” Florio said. “I think that’s what it’s all about. It’s not just Amazon. It’s about Peacock, it’s about Netflix, it’s about anybody else that may come to the table and bid on the packages the next time around.”
