The 2024 NFL season begins on Thursday (September 5) when the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs play conference rival Baltimore Ravens in NBC (and Peaco*ck’s) annual Kick-off Classic. The game will be the first of 272 regular season over 18 weeks, followed by 13 postseason games concluding with Super Bowl LIX.
All NFL games will be televised and/or streamed. This season more games will be streamed on more SVOD platforms. Hence, this season NFL fans may have to open up their wallets a little more if they want to watch some of their favorite teams in action.
Last season, the median age of NFL viewers on linear TV was a graying 55.4, the NFL is hopeful that by having more games streamed, it will attract younger viewers.
This season there will be four SVOD providers that will be exclusively streaming one or more NFL games; Amazon Prime Video, Peaco*ck, ESPN+ and newcomer Netflix. According to Front Office Sports every week during the 2024 season there will be at least one game exclusively streamed. Here is a rundown.
Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video will be starting its third season as home to Thursday Night Football. This season Prime Video will be exclusively streaming 15 Thursday Night Football games beginning on September 12 (Buffalo at Miami) and ending on December 26 (Seattle at Chicago).
Last season, Thursday Night Football averaged 11.86 million viewers, a year-over-year increase of +24%. Amazon will be paying the NFL a reported $1 billion each year to stream Thursday Night Football through the 2033 season.
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For the second straight season, Prime Video will also exclusively stream a Black Friday game (Las Vegas at Kansas City). Last year’s game (Miami at New York Jets) averaged 9.61 million viewers. It was reported the e-commerce giant paid the NFL about $100 million to exclusively stream a game on Black Friday, one of the busiest Holiday shopping days each year.
Also, in a first, next January, Prime Video will stream an NFL Wild Card game. Amazon is reportedly paying the NFL upwards of $150 million to exclusively stream the game. Prime Video will also be live streaming NBA games starting with the 2025-26 season. Starting in January 2026, Prime Video will be streaming a Thursday night NBA doubleheader at the conclusion of Thursday Night Football coverage.
A regular monthly subscription to Prime Video comes in at $15. An annual cost is $139. To subscribe to the standalone streaming service costs $9 monthly.
Peaco*ck
During the first week (Friday, September 6) of the NFL season, NBCU’s Peaco*ck will exclusively stream a matchup between the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers from São Paulo, Brazil.
Last season, Peaco*ck paid the NFL a reported $110 million to exclusively live stream a Wild Card game (Miami at Kansas City). The game averaged a record 23 million viewers and Peaco*ck reportedly added three million new subscribers. In addition, this season, Peaco*ck will be live streaming all NFL games televised on NBC, including the Kick-off Classic, all Sunday Night Football games, Thanksgiving evening and postseason games.
During the Paris Olympics, Peaco*ck streamed 5,000 hours of coverage and averaged between 4-to-5 million viewers each day. NBCU reported that Peaco*ck had added 2.8 million new subscribers. The monthly subscription fee for Peaco*ck begins at $8, an ad free version costs $14.
ESPN+
This season ESPN+ will exclusively stream one Monday Night Football on October 21 (Los Angeles Chargers at Arizona). ESPN+ will also stream many (but not all) Monday Night Football games televised on ESPN and/or ABC. For the postseason, ESPN+ will live stream one Wild Card game and one Divisional Round game that will also be televised on ESPN and ABC. ESPN+ costs $10.99 a month or $109.99 annually. It is also available via the Disney bundle.
Netflix
The biggest change to the NFL regular season schedule was the addition of Netflix exclusively live streaming two games on Christmas Day. It was reported Netflix is paying the NFL $75 million per game to live stream two Christmas Day games through the 2026 regular season.
This season the Christmas Day games will be Kansas City at Pittsburgh at 1 p.m. (ET) followed by Baltimore at Houston at 4:30 p.m. (ET). A monthly Netflix subscription with ads costs $6.99 monthly a standard HD video monthly fee costs $15.49 monthly comes with no ads. There are other subscription packages available.
Paramount+
Paramount+ will live stream all games televised on CBS. These include all Sunday afternoon contests, Thanksgiving Day and postseason games. Paramount+ Essentials costs $7.99 each month or $59.99 a year. (Paramount+ with Showtime is more expensive.)
YouTube TV
For the second year in a row YouTube TV will be exclusively streaming NFL Sunday Ticket. The subscription service allows viewers to watch 160+ out-of-market NFL games on Sunday afternoons on Fox and CBS. YouTube is paying the NFL $14 billion to stream Sunday Ticket over seven seasons.
The annual Sunday Ticket subscription costs $479.99 or if it’s bundled with the NFL RedZone channel it’s $519.99. The price of NFL Sunday Ticket with a YouTube TV subscription is $635.96 over four months. At the end of the four month NFL season, the monthly subscription cost for the YouTube TV base plan is $72.99
NFL+
The NFL own streaming provider NFL+ allows users to stream any national or local market games regardless of the television network or streaming provider. The games can only be viewed on such mobile devices as phones and tablets. NFL+ Premium allows access to the NFL RedZone as well as other features such as replays. An NFL+ subscription costs $6.99 monthly and $49.99 annually. The NFL+ Premium costs $14.99 monthly or $99.99 per annum.
Televised Games
For televised games, broadcast networks NBC, CBS, Fox and ABC will still televise a majority of games. It requires either a monthly MVPD/vMVPD subscription or a digital antenna at an inexpensive one-time cost. Cable networks ESPN and the NFL Network would require a MVPD/vMVPD subscription.
Also, Fubo TV a vMVPD, provides access to ESPN, NFL Network, Fox, ABC, CBS and NBC among dozens other live channels. The monthly subscription rate for Fubo TV starts at $80. NFL games on broadcast/cable television can also be streamed on other vMVPD’s such as Sling TV, DirecTV Stream, Hulu Plus Live TV and YouTube TV. Costs and the number of networks available vary.
Streaming Bundles
Venu Sports, a collaboration of Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery (which would stream NFL games from Fox, ESPN and ABC) had plans to roll-out its service prior to the start of the 2024 NFL season. Last month, Fubo TV won an injunction against them temporarily halting the planned launch date. Venu had set the monthly subscriber fee at $42.99.
