The National Football League (NFL) prepares some games for a new media package that can be sold to potential streaming partners, according to people by Lucas Shaw of Bloomberg.
The revelation comes in the wake of the agreement between ESPN and NFL Media: The League has guaranteed NFL Network’s previous four games, as part of the announced last Tuesday.
Peter Kafka of Business Insider, which, without its own network, the league tends to license these games to giants like Netflix. For Alexander Sherman of CNBC Sports, it is about maximizing value and testing engagement.
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Omdia’s newly used report reinforces that the migration of digital sports is gradual. Despite the narrative about TV audience, the survey of the show that about 83% of NFL games between October and December will be broadcast on open TV: ABC (Disney), CBS, NBC and FOX.
Another 19 games (8% of the total) will be at Prime Video or Netflix; 13 games will be shown by ESPN; And only one – the opening in Sao Paulo on September 5 – will be broadcast live on YouTube.
It is in this fragmented scenario that Globo negotiates the entrance of football in its grid. According to Marcel Rizzo, from Estadão, the design of the negotiations is:
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- Globo / Sporttv / Globoplay: International games, one match by Sunday, NFC playoffs and Super Bowl Biennial
- ESPN: night games, AFC playoffs and Super Bowl alternating with Globo
- RedeTV!: Maintains broadcast on open TV
The likely entry of Globo refers to 2006, when ESPN and Bandsports divided NFL in Brazil, operating a format with fragmented packages, different hours and exclusives by operator that limited the growth of the sport.
Today, logic keeps similarities, but the scenario is different: NFL is already a consolidated product in Brazil, with one in full expansion (36 million Brazilians), and the dispute has migrated to a new front: the war between streaming platforms for the engagement of this audience
Luciano do Valle, Bandsports and audience formation for the NFL
The first records of transmission of football and NBA in Bandeirantes dates back to 1985, with Luciano do Valle narrating most of the matches alongside Silvio Lancelotti and Elia Júnior. In the late 1980s, the Manchete network also showed some VTs, including the 1989 Super Bowl.
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In 1991, Bandeirantes created the “Noble Range of Sport”, expanding space for American sports and introducing football to a new generation of fans, including Paulo Mancha and Everaldo Marques, who would later cover NFL at ESPN.
Spot sums up: “Luciano do Valle contributed a lot. When ESPN arrived in the 90s, there was already an audience base that knew the sport.”
This is one of the rescued stories of the “Jarr after yards: the history of football on Brazilian television”written by and published in 2018.
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The 203 pages are a deep dive in the construction of football as a media product in the country, and bring reports of protagonists who lived each phase.
Its value is precisely to reveal as a niche sport in the 1980s has become commodity disputed by open networks, subscription channels and now digital platforms.
This article was based on the work and part of a clear assumption: the current war for NFL rights only makes sense in the light of this story. The same challenges as the 2000s – content fragmentation, exclusives, the dichotomy between open and paid TV – now resurface in a new format.
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ESPN and Bandsports: partnership and conflict for exclusives
ESPN Brasileiras its operations in 2006, exchanging US broadcasts for studios in São Paulo. In the same move, Bandsports entered the game, guaranteeing partial rights of NFL (Sunday afternoon matches and half of playoffs).
Without the rights of Brazilian soccer (Globosat) or International Football (ESPN), Bandsports rescued Luciano do Valle’s booklet in the 80s: sports diversification. He even created Bandsports Football, a weekly program that analyzed the games on Tuesdays.
At that time, the TV was still dominant: 97% of the homes had device, but only 5.36% had a signature. The internet was at 14.5% of households.
Irreverent transmissions long before Cazétv
The expansion of the internet in the 2000s benefited both sports coverage and the public. At ESPN, the newscast “The Book Is On The Table” – Name inspired by a funk and Casseta & Planet – balanced information and humor, helping Brazilians decipher the complexities of football.
Important to note: relaxed language is not a recent invention of Youtube. Bandsports and ESPN adopted light tone long before Cazétv:
- ESPN: Everaldo Marques and Paulo Antunes mixed stinks, pop culture and funny comments
- Bandsports: Ivan Zimmermann narrated with epic enthusiasm; Paulo Mancha told players’ stories
The interaction, initially done by email and then by blogs, anticipated the participatory transmission model that seems new today.
2011: NFL’s antagonistic growth in Brazil
The book reveals a paradox: the big football leap in the country began with a loss. In 2011, Bandsports failed to transmit the NFL after not renewing rights. What looked like a setback, however, made room for ESPN to dominate the scenery: he took over Sunday afternoons (time -long) and secured a robust package with over 90 games per season, including all playoffs and Super Bowl for three years.
The movement was decisive. In 2012, ESPN was already operating its ESPN+ channel (former ESPN HD) focused on American sports, especially university football (natural product given to the rights of the American matrix).
And the numbers proved the hit: the Super Bowl between Giants and Patriots recorded 170% higher audience than the previous edition on the station. The NFL gained so much space that ESPN even broadcast the draft for the first time in Brazil and even took the game to the radio, a rarity in the national sports environment.
In a strong symbolism of sports growth, the 2012 Super Bowl also marked the return of football to open TV after decades, broadcast by interactive sport.
Pay TV, streaming and the role of sports hub
Recent reports and data show a complex equation: streaming enhances range without necessarily cannibalizing traditional TV.
PWC analysis earlier this year says that NFL digital broadcasts, although with a lower audience than TV, can increase the total audience, especially at alternative times.
In the US, the figures released by Charter’s balance last week reveal that the decline of pay TV, with losses falling from 408,000 to only 80,000 subscribers in one year.
This change rekindles the role of operators as sports hubs: the cable may not die, but turn into premium niche and property aggregator.
In Brazil, the movement follows this hybrid flow. ESPN will test football broadcasts on YouTube with matches outside the pay TV grid. While Globo prepares GE TV on YouTube, Cazétv and offering free live sports in an explicit attempt to recover space and youthful audience.
Passed as a warning, present as an opportunity
The Globo VS ESPN clash reenances the 2006 script, but with crucial differences: today, global platforms and creators compete for the same fan. NFL is no longer just a transmission product and became a strategic thermometer for three fronts:
- AUDITING ADVANCES (TV + STREAMING + SOCIAL NETWORKS)
- Cross Monetization (Subscriptions, Ads, Integrated E-commerce)
- Community management (consumption and engagement data)
If, in 2006, the fragmentation has fought the growth of NFL in Brazil, now Globo can unify access, or recreate barriers for poorly drawn exclusives.
In the end, the game dispute is also a race for relevance: those who master ecosystem, distribution and relationship with the fan will define the new model of sports business in the post-ICO-paid era.
