NFL Sticks With Exclusive Streaming, But What About The Super Bowl? 'We Have To Fish Where The Fish Are'

Viewership for National Football League games was strong in the 2023 season, potentially helped by new fans tuning in thanks to Taylor Swift. With or without Swift at games, media partners of the NFL are winning from the increased viewership.

Here's a look at the future of the NFL as pertaining to streaming exclusives.

What Happened: For the first time in the league’s history, an NFL Playoff game was available exclusively on a streaming platform for the 2023 season.

A Wild Card matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins set viewership records, but also resulted in criticism of the league for making the game not available to fans who didn't have the Peacock streaming platform from Comcast Corporation CMCSA.

Ahead of Super Bowl LVIII, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was asked about the league's future streaming plans.

"You have to understand where the media landscape is going. It's changing faster," Goodell said.

The commissioner said consumers are moving off of paid television services and going to streaming platforms.

"We as the NFL have to be able to reach our fans."

Goodell highlighted the viewership from the Peacock exclusive streamed playoff game, which outdrew the broadcast audience from the prior year. The game also reduced the average age of the audience by "almost 10 years," according to Goodell.

The growth of streamed NFL games is increasing youth audiences for NFL games, the commissioner said.

While there was significant pushback over the Peacock exclusive, Goodell told reporters that 90% of NFL games are still on free television, which is higher than other sports leagues. Goodell also reminded reporters that there was the same outcry when NFL games started being aired on ESPN, which is a unit of The Walt Disney Company DIS.

"We have to fish where the fish are. Our fans are on these platforms. We're going to continue to reach our fans where they are."

Goodell also highlighted the league's partnership with Amazon.com Inc AMZN, which has the exclusive rights to "Thursday Night Football" games.

The commissioner was asked if there will ever be a Super Bowl that is exclusive to streaming. "Certainly not in my time," he answered.

The commissioner said part of the league's success is its commitment to broadcast television. Goodell said for future Super Bowls, there would be a broadcast element and media companies can also stream the games.

"We want to support that."

Goodell signed a three-year contract extension in 2022, which will see him remain the NFL commissioner through March 2027.

Why It's Important: To pair with Goodell's streaming comments, it was recently reported by the Wall Street Journal that Amazon will have an exclusive NFL Playoff game in the 2024 NFL season.

Amazon Prime Video will be the exclusive home of an unnamed 2024 NFL Playoff game. According to the report, Amazon was offered an exclusive playoff game for the 2023 season as part of its exclusive rights deal but passed, leading to Comcast taking the opportunity.

Comcast reported 23 million viewers for its Peacock exclusive NFL Playoff game, which was up 6% to the year prior game. The game hit a peak of 24.6 million viewers during the second quarter and reached a total of 27.6 million viewers, according to the company.

The media company didn't disclose how many Peacock subscribers it gained as a result of the game. An estimate from analytics firm Antenna said Peacock gained 2.8 million subscribers in three days, according to Variety.

The success of Peacock for the NFL Playoff game, Amazon's Thursday Night Football success and comments from Goodell show that streaming isn't going away for NFL games, whether fans like it or not.

The good news for many fans and perhaps Super Bowl advertisers is at least the NFL Championship game is off limits for now.

Now Read: Penn Entertainment Q4 Earnings Highlights: Revenue Miss, EPS Miss, ESPN Bet’s Impact

Photo: Shutterstock