The streaming platform Netflix has struck a significant expanded agreement with the National Football League, securing rights to broadcast five regular season contests annually along with the NFL Honors ceremony through the 2029 season.
The deal, revealed Wednesday during Netflix’s advertising upfront event, builds upon the streaming service’s existing arrangement to carry two Christmas Day contests that began in 2024. Under the new terms, Netflix will broadcast games during opening week, Thanksgiving Eve, Christmas Day (two games), and a 1 p.m. ET Saturday contest during the season’s final week.
Officials confirmed two specific matchups featuring the Los Angeles Rams on Wednesday. Netflix will stream the opening week contest between the Rams and San Francisco 49ers from Melbourne, Australia. Later in the season, the Rams will face the Green Bay Packers in what will mark the league’s inaugural Thanksgiving Eve game on Nov. 25.
Both contests will air during prime time hours in the United States at 8:35 p.m. ET. The season opener is scheduled for Sept. 10 in the U.S., though it will kick off at 10:35 a.m. on Sept. 11 in Australia due to the 14-hour time difference from New York and 17-hour gap from Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The Australia game between NFC West division rivals represents one of nine international contests the NFL plans to stage during the upcoming season. League officials released their complete international schedule Wednesday morning.
“We’ve seen how many fans are already on Netflix, so we thought it was a tremendous opportunity to deepen the partnership, expand the reach of those games, and to do so around tentpole events at the beginning and end of the year with big holidays in the middle, then have them extend into honors and do what Netflix has shown they do so well, which is make big events even bigger,” said Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s executive vice president of media distribution.
The Thanksgiving Eve and final week Saturday games come from four contests the league reclaimed after ESPN purchased NFL Network. YouTube carried the opening week game during the previous season.
The NFL Honors ceremony debuted during the 2012 Super Bowl in Indianapolis as the league’s platform for announcing annual award recipients in a single broadcast. Initially aired the evening before the Super Bowl, the show moved to Thursday of Super Bowl week in 2022. Previously carried by whichever network broadcast the Super Bowl, the ceremony will now reach a global audience through the Netflix partnership.
The NFL Honors presentation features Associated Press awards including Most Valuable Player, Offensive and Defensive Players of the Year, Offensive and Defensive Rookie of the Year, Coach of the Year, Assistant Coach of the Year and Comeback Player of the Year.
The complete schedule, including Christmas Day games, will be announced Thursday evening. The final week Saturday contests, which also feature 4:30 and 8:15 p.m. ET games on ESPN/ABC, won’t be revealed until six days prior as the league prioritizes matchups with playoff significance for those time slots.
League officials finalized the regular season schedule Tuesday morning.
Netflix also revealed that the third season of its documentary series Quarterback will premiere July 14. The upcoming season will follow Washington’s Jayden Daniels, Tampa Bay’s Baker Mayfield, Tennessee’s Cam Ward, who was selected as the top pick in the 2025 draft, and Joe Flacco, who started the season with Cleveland before being traded to Cincinnati.
