As the NFL schedule was released and more games than ever will be on various streaming networks, many sports radio stations hit on the topic of the number of outlets airing NFL football. In New York, Evan Roberts and Tiki Barber discussed it during Evan & Tiki on WFAN.

“The NFL is heat checking themselves by saying, ‘we can play a game at any time of the day and people will watch,'” said Roberts. “They tried 9:30 in the morning, people will watch. They tried Black Friday, people will watch. Now they’ve invaded Christmas. But here’s the other thing they are doing as a heat check. They are now testing you to buy every single streaming service known to man so you can watch every game. You need Peacock, you need Amazon Prime Video, you need YouTube TV or at least a subscription to the Sunday Ticket…and now you need Netflix.”

Tiki Barber responded by saying he thinks the Netflix deal is the “most genius” as he talked about the size of the subscription base and where they come from.

“I know this just from being around the NFL for so many years, their goal is to find the incremental viewer,” Barber said. “Like the incremental income comes from overseas. Their biggest growth is going to come, not in the United States because it’s saturated, if you’re a fan, you’re already watching, you’re already engaged…It’s a way to influence the incremental viewer that is not in the United States so Netflix, to me, is the biggest [deal] they have done.”

Roberts replied, “I get why the NFL does it. I get why the streaming services do it. I get the business of it. But it’s very difficult to ask your fans to have every single streaming network in the world, it just is.”

They discuss what the total cost would be if you wanted to watch every NFL game this year and were given the total of $986.

Roberts added, “They are making you spend so much freakin’ money to watch all of these games, but guess what? We do it!”

Netflix recently signed a three-season deal with the NFL through which it will broadcast at least one NFL game on Christmas Day every year. The agreement, which is reportedly worth about $75 million per contest, is the first endeavor into live professional football games made by the media conglomerate.

Netflix recently stated that its over-the-top streaming service had 269.6 million paid subscribers in Q1 2024. The platform ranked sixth among media providers in monthly television viewing in April, responsible for 7.6% of viewing according to Nielsen Media Research. Adam Schein discussed why the NFL was able to reach such a deal with Netflix and further disseminate its inventory of games ahead of the new season on the Thursday edition of Schein on Sports on SiriusXM Mad Dog Sports Radio.

Schein began the segment on his show through a repetitive series of statements surrounding the game that gradually built up to reach a climax pertaining to why the deal was made. In the end, he stated that the NFL on Christmas on Netflix on a Wednesday is possible because of the power of the NFL and how the league is a “cash cow.”

NFL regular season viewership averaged 17.9 million viewers per game during the 2023 regular season, which was up 7% from the previous season and the best metric since 2015. The league also achieved ratings triumphs in the playoffs that culminated in a record-setting Super Bowl broadcast from Paramount Global that averaged 123.7 million viewers, the most people to watch the same broadcast in television history according to Nielsen Media Research.

“These games on Christmas – my goodness, is it Christmas yet?,” Schein exclaimed. “I mean, Santa Goodell delivered for you already. Are you kidding me? Chiefs at Steelers, 1 p.m. Eastern time on Christmas. Ravens-Texans in Houston? Buckle up buttercup. I can’t wait.”

The NFL scheduled two games on Christmas Day last year, the first of which was an early afternoon matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Las Vegas Raiders, which ended up averaging 29.2 million viewers. This was the most-watched Christmas Day for the league in 34 years and up 29% year-over-year from the comparable game in the year prior.

The Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers closed out the holiday on ABC and ESPN+, amassing an average of 27.1 million viewers on ABC and ESPN+. The game finished as the second most-watched Monday Night Football game in 27 years and completed a day in which the NFL surpassed the five-game NBA slate in average viewership. Those matchups, which were presented on ESPN and ABC throughout the day and included several marquee teams, averaged 2.85 million viewers.

“And guess what? You’re going to watch,” Schein said. “And guess what? The NFL signed a three-year deal with Netflix, and even though my dad’s going to ask me a thousand times how to get the games and where to get the games and does his TV get Netflix, it’s a monster win.”

The staff at 95.3 WDAE in Tampa spent time today remembering their former colleague Steve ‘Big Dog’ Duemig who passed away on this day five years ago. Duemig died at the age of 64 after being diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer early in 2017.

Hosts, callers and guests talked about their memories of one of the legends of sports radio. Duemig started with Tampa’s first all-sports station, WFNS, where he spent five years before moving to WDAE for more than two decades.

Jay & Zac hosts Jay Recher and Zac Blobner played some clips from old shows featuring Duemig, including a rather hilarious call from a listener who doesn’t realize he is talking to the ‘Big Dog’ as he is telling him why he doesn’t like the show or Duemig himself, even though he listens to the whole show most days.

One of the guests that came on was Rob Higgins, Executive Director of the Tampa Bay Sports Commission who talked about the way Duemig supported the area and all the various events that would come to the Tampa area.

“He was incredible,” Higgins said. “You think about just how passionate he was about Team Tampa Bay and how much he really focused on promoting the community…he truly was one of a kind and someone we think about non-stop for sure.”

In addition to his work locally in Tampa, Duemig hosted nationally on Fox Sports Radio and contributed to The Golf Channel for more than five years.