For the second consecutive year, the NFL is set to play an international game in Brazil on the Friday night following the season opener. Reports suggest it could air on YouTube in 2025.
A report from The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand says that YouTube has “emerged as the heavy favorite” as the streaming home for the NFL game set to be broadcast during the league’s opening week.
However, unlike some of the other streaming-exclusive broadcasts the league has featured in recent years — like it’s deals with Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Peacock, and ESPN+ — this game featuring the Los Angeles Chargers and a yet-to-be-identified opponent would be available for free.
It remains to be seen if the NFL will attempt to make the Friday night game during the league’s opening week a permanent fixture on the calendar. In 2024 and 2025, Labor Day falls early enough in the month that the league can broadcast games on Friday evenings and not run afoul of the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961. That piece of legislation limits the NFL from broadcasting games on Friday and Saturdays between the second Friday of September and the second Saturday in December.
The NFL routinely opens its season on the Thursday following Labor Day.
The league could challenge the wording of the law, arguing that it is not “televising” a game during the forbidden period, that it is “streaming” a game in the window.
Currently, the law says that broadcasting stations cannot transmit NFL broadcasts on Fridays or Saturdays inside the specified window if there is a high school or college football game being played within 75 miles of the broadcasting station. If the game were aired for free on YouTube, however, there would be no “station” to broadcast the game.
A potential broadcast on YouTube would expand the NFL’s relationship with the digital video platform. The popular NFL Sunday Ticket package currently resides on the YouTube platform. That deal began for the 2023 NFL season.
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