The NFL is reportedly only hoping to stream more games after offers from Amazon and Peacock

Featured Sponsor

Store	Link	Sample Product
UK Artful Impressions	Premiere Etsy Store

The NFL recently made several deals to make NFL games stream-only. The first was Amazon’s deal to stream Thursday Night Football to Amazon Prime members. Now Peacock has a deal to stream an exclusive NFL playoff game.

It has now been reported that the NFL sees the Peacock affair as a test run by Jim Trotreporter for The Athletic.

According to reports, Peacock is paying $110 million for the rights to stream an NFL playoff game exclusively. If that goes well, you can easily see ESPN+, Paramount+, and other services lining up to get their exclusive subscriber boost.

It’s also been reported that the NFL wants to look into other options when Amazon’s Thursday night NFL games deal ends. Having more bidders to stream Thursday night games could help raise the price Amazon is willing to pay for these games.

More and more sports leagues are looking to streaming as the future. Not only to bring in more money, but also to attract a younger group of viewers who may be the next generation of sports fans. MLB and the NBA have both been pushing for ways to stream their games online. For now though, it seems like we’re a long way from a world where you sign up directly to a league to watch every game.

It’s not just the leagues that want to stream only. This week it was reported that Disney is busy preparing plans to offer ESPN directly to consumers as a streaming service. Now, thanks to a Disney project codenamed “Flagship,” Disney staff is actively working to turn ESPN into a streaming service. It is not yet known exactly how this will work.

If ESPN pulls out of cable TV and more NFL games become stream-only, it’s easy to see how that will add pressure to cable TV and help accelerate the growth of cable trimming.