Streaming has been taking market share away from traditional cable television for years, a trend that has become a reality netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) one of the largest media companies in the world. Live sports are one of the last bastions of traditional television.
But that’s also slowly changing as streaming services continue to bid for streaming rights. Of the 100 most watched programs in 2025, 96 were sporting events. As sports continue to dominate the screen, the prices for those rights continue to rise.
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Netflix continues to dabble in live sports, but it doesn’t follow the same playbook as traditional networks. Here’s why Netflix’s strategy is likely to pay off.
Since networks rely heavily on sports for their viewership, they often bid to gain the largest audience possible. The National Football League is an excellent example. Each of the networks spends between $2.1 billion and $2.7 billion a year on rights to broadcast weekly games during the season.
However, Netflix reached a much smaller deal with the league in 2024, reportedly paying an estimated $75 million per game for the exclusive rights to stream games on Christmas Day. It’s not cheap, but it involves a much lower total expense. Netflix has taken a similar approach with other sports content, including exclusive rights to:
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Major League Baseball: Opening Day, Home Run Derby and Field of Dreams game for 2026 season.
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FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2027 and 2031.
Netflix, which has traditionally made money from subscriptions rather than advertising, doesn’t need every game to benefit from the gravity of live sports. That said, Netflix’s ad-supported memberships have become a growth engine, and the beauty of their strategy is that you can scale your spend as you see fit. For example, it committed $5 billion over 10 years to air the World Wrestling Entertainment series. RAW programming on Monday nights.
As Netflix continues to grow its subscriber base, expand into sports, and use new monetization levers, it is becoming a stronger company. Netflix’s return on invested capital has skyrocketed in recent years, to more than 25%.
Meanwhile, Wall Street analysts are still forecasting strong earnings growth going forward and are forecasting long-term annualized growth of 22%. That makes Netflix stock a spectacular buy at its current valuation, trading at 31 times its 2026 earnings estimates.