NFL streaming ratings were wildly good in Week 1, and there’s no going back

Heading into the 2024 NFL season, football fans who wanted to watch every game this year found themselves facing a long shopping list. Between YouTube’s “NFL Sunday Ticket,” Thursday night games streaming on Amazon Prime, and Peacock’s standalone games — including the Week 1 Friday night game between the Green Bay Packers and the Philadelphia Eagles — and more, fans who wanted to see all the action needed to make sure they have every streaming service they need.

Now, thanks to recent comments from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and the massive numbers from the Packers-Eagles game, fans might not expect the NFL to leave streaming behind anytime soon.

According to numbers first released by Front Office Sports, the game between the Eagles and the Packers pulled in a massive audience. “NBCUniversal’s Peacock followed on Friday with an average of 14.2 million for an exclusive stream of the NFL’s first game in Brazil, involving the Eagles and Packers. That figure was the second-biggest live audience ever on Peacock, trailing only the record-setting figure in January for an NFL wild-card game.”

That game featured the Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins, which the Chiefs won en route to their second straight Super Bowl.

Speaking on CNBC ahead of Week 1, Goodell noted that the league is going where their fans are, which means a shift towards streaming services. Speaking with Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box,” Goodell discussed the league’s trend toward streaming.

“[T]he bottom line is you have to go where your fans are, and our fans are moving off onto streaming platforms. Netflix is a good example of that. Peacock is a good example of that. Amazon is a good example of that. Our fans are on different platforms, and we need to reach them. But at the same time, over 85 percent of our games are still available on free television. We think we have the most fan-friendly policies for our fans and the media world of any league by far,” said Goodell last week.

“100 percent of our games for the two teams participating. So we really think that those policies are really beneficial to our growth, to our supporting more people watching NFL football and the fans’ enjoyment of it,” continued the commissioner. “But streaming also brings in technologies that I think are going to be really valuable to improve the experience for consumers. I think, you know, there’s more things that they can do with their platforms and technology that I think is going to be very, very positive with our fans.”

With comments like that, and numbers like we are seeing from Friday’s Eagles and Packers game, do not expect the league to shift course anytime soon.

We might see even more streaming in the future.