Netflix recently completed its inaugural presentation of the NFL on Christmas Day, airing a doubleheader of games with playoff implications. Operating under the first season of a three-year deal with the league, the streaming platform amassed interest from around the United States and reported strong consumption throughout the day. The games featured commentators from six different sports entities, with CBS producing the game broadcasts and NFL Media responsible for studio coverage. Moreover, the day also included special musical performances from Beyoncé and Mariah Carey, along with several interviews and cameos from additional celebrities and Netflix stars.
During the Thursday morning show on WEEI, Rob Bradford explained that there has to be an acceptance of how sports media is moving towards streaming. Reacting to a phone call in which the listener outlined how Netflix did a good job and has been annoyed by everyone panicking over NBA ratings numbers being down, Bradford discussed the appeal of professional football and what has made it successful in these ventures.
“The NFL didn’t need to accept it, right?,” Bradford said. “They don’t need to because they’re so powerful. People are going to do whatever it takes, as we have seen with Amazon and now Netflix, do whatever it takes to find the games. Not so with the NBA, and I’ll give you the ultimate one. The MLB is chasing their tail so many times in so many things.”
Apple reached a seven-year deal with Major League Baseball in 2022 to broadcast Friday Night Baseball games on its Apple TV+ streaming platform. There have been plaudits surrounding the video quality of the broadcasts and other aspects of the presentation; however, Bradford feels that Netflix learned a lesson from the manner in which these endeavors were initially executed in landing “established people” for the doubleheader broadcasts.
“With the MLB for the Apple TV – no knock on these people; they’ve probably gone on to good things and they’re very talented – but at the same time, the Apple TV broadcast – the thing that everyone was saying, ‘Look at this broadcast,’” Bradford explained. “They had very inexperienced broadcasters on doing it to a point where you’re like, ‘No, that’s not how you want first impressions,’ and that was another mistake they made.”
Nick “Fitzy” Stevens, co-hosting with Bradford on Thursday morning, added that baseball moved into streaming the wrong way. Moreover, he delineated the different expectations and standards to which football has had to cater and emphasized that the league only chose to move in this direction when technology firms began to pay top dollar. In fact, he classified the streaming endeavors from the league as evidence of it representing “capitalism at its absolute finest execution” rather than following altered consumption trends.
“Football doesn’t have to dole out or dispense the product for free because of our insatiable need to consume it,” Stevens said. “I’ve always said, ‘There is no methadone for football.’ Once that becomes your thing, that’s all you care about, that’s all you want forever, and you’ll do anything, including watching it on Amazon, streaming it on Christmas Day on Netflix.”
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