• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, February 10, 2026

Selling package of a few games in the NFL regular season -- like the league did with Netflix's two exclusive Christmas Day games -- could be the next wave of popular sports leagues expanding their revenue generation.

The NFL is quickly moving even further.

This past season -- for the first time -- it sold one regular-season game to free streaming platform YouTube for anyone to see for a tidy $100 million, according to reports.

In an interview with CNBC, a senior media executive for the league said it could offer a special one-time game -- or a small multiple of games -- to traditional and non-traditional media companies.

Why go there? Hans Schroeder, the NFL executive, believes the growing digital reach of platforms gives the league permission of sorts to give the widest possible access to its fervent fan base.

The NFL has experimented with this early on in other ways, under parent companies' current deals -- offering early round "wild card" NFL games like with Peacock a couple of seasons ago.

This comes on top of the NFL readying its effort to use its mid-contract option with five existing media companies -- Walt Disney, Paramount Global, Comcast’s NBCUniversal, Fox Corp. and Amazon -- this year. This coming with four years remaining on those 11 year, $110 billion collective deals.

With the continued demand for live sports programming content of all types, will other leagues package special games around holidays or otherwise to do the same?

Could the NBA, Major League Baseball, and NHL hockey carve out some of the same formats as the NHL?

The downside from all this is viewer confusion over where to find these games: on TV networks, premium streamers or a free streamer?

Somewhat better news for advertisers is that improved "reach" consideration could bring in new marketers.

Going further, how will TV/streaming advertisers feel if this expands when it comes to further fractionalization of the media?

Is breaking apart old selling standards of offering an entire season of content -- with exclusivity -- to a single platform a good thing?

At the same time, does all this make viewer discovery issues more complex? That may be where new high-level marketing comes in.

So, as the expression goes: Stay tuned. (somewhere).