The thing about NFL TV rights is that everyone knows the deal is a money pit…and they still jump in anyway. Year after year, networks shell out massive checks to broadcast games regardless of the monetary consequences. The reasoning is pretty straightforward: Without football, they’re not even in the conversation. This is exactly what the former NFL Union Chief, DeMaurice Smith, recently called out.

“Every media company loses money on football,” Smith shared in the latest episode of Boardroom Talks. “The way they think of it is, ‘I already know you’re going to lose money. And I also know that you know that if you don’t have football as a staple of your network, you’re not going to be a network for long. All we’re trying to figure out is how much money you’re going to spend in this sports media system.'”

According to Smith, the NFL costs a fortune, but not having the NFL costs even more. Given that Smith ran the NFLPA for nearly 15 years from 2009 to 2023, his words carry weight. Back in 2016, CBS and NBC were in a bidding war over Thursday Night Football for a similar reason, despite the losses they would face.

CBS and NBC agreed to share the rights for TNF for $450 million. Business Insider reported that CBS had already lost $200 million on TNF in just a couple of seasons, and new projections showed those losses ballooning even further. They were paying around $45 million per game, while struggling to make close to that in ad money.

Analysts even said that airing a regular primetime show would’ve made the network more money. That’s why networks still kept the NFL because losing money on football was better than losing football altogether. Fast forward to today, and things haven’t changed much.

Instead, they’ve just gotten bigger. The NFL’s media deal, signed in 2021, stretches across 11 years and totals $111 billion (across NBC, Fox, CBS, Amazon, and ESPN). The deal is officially locked in until at least the 2029-2030 season. There’s technically an “opt-out” after that point, but that’s still years away. Still, the NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, is already hinting at renegotiating early.

“I think our partners would want to sit down and talk to us,” Goodell told the business network. “I like that opportunity. Obviously, it’s not going to happen this year. But it could happen as early as next year.”

Thanks to the NFL’s expansion of the International Game Series, the league is aware of its increased value. Now, the next year is almost here. Currently, the networks have an incentive to come to the table as well. This is because a new major force has entered the market in the form of streaming giants such as Netflix and YouTube.

Though networks like FOX, CBS, and ESPN are losing money, the real fear now isn’t overspending. It’s losing the NFL to someone else. Netflix has already grabbed exclusive rights to Christmas Day games (The Dallas Cowboys vs. the Washington Commanders and the Detroit Lions vs. the Minnesota Vikings). On top of that, the league handed YouTube a Week 1 matchup this season. This was a clear sign of how Goodell’s league is building a relationship with streamers.

It would seem like the NFL is now exploring new international game packages, digital exclusives, and even the possibility of granting a streamer the rights to broadcast the Super Bowl someday. That shift will likely push legacy networks to fall in line with whatever timetable Roger Goodell chooses next. All in all, there is a reason the NFL holds all the leverage right now. But at the same time, cable is losing viewers like never before.

How is cable losing viewers to streaming platforms?

Streaming giants like Netflix and YouTube aren’t just squeezing networks like CBS, ESPN, and FOX. They’re snatching viewers away from their traditional cable setups. At present, the only thing keeping traditional TV from completely flatlining is football. If you look at October of the 2025 season, the stats paint a clear picture. On a regular weekday, broadcast TV pulls about 22% of total viewing. But the moment NFL Sunday rolls around, that jumps to 27.3%.

That bump alone explains why, through ten weeks, the league is averaging 17.6 million viewers per game window. That’s a jump of 7% from the last season. However, even with the NFL propping things up, overall TV viewership is still sliding downhill. Football slows the fall, but it doesn’t reverse the trend. These are the drops in total TV viewing over the past few years:

• 2021: TV had 65.3%
• 2023: TV had 54.1%
• 2024: TV had 50.3%
• October 2025: TV dropped again to 45.1%

Meanwhile, the streaming services are surging at the same pace that TV is falling. For instance, in 2021, streaming had 28% of all viewing. Fast forward to today, and it has 45.7%. This is the real battle: the NFL keeps TV alive, but everything else pushes viewers to streaming. And you can tell why. Think of price and friction, on-demand beating scheduled TV, better content, you name it. That just means live sports, especially college football and NFL games, are just a temporary lifeline rather than a cure for traditional TV.

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