The National Football League (NFL) is weighing the idea of giving YouTube the exclusive streaming rights to a rare Friday football game during the league’s opening weekend later this year.
The game would stream during Week 1, the opening week for football, according to a report from the New York Times, which said YouTube “has emerged as the heavy favorite to stream its first exclusive NFL game on Friday of the opening week,” based on information provided by unnamed sources.
“The deal would represent another landmark agreement between the league and a behemoth digital platform that is redefining how fans watch games,” the New York Times said.
Typically, the NFL week begins with “Thursday Night Football” and concludes days later with “Monday Night Football.” Rarely is a regular season game played on Fridays, though the league has allowed some media rights holders to air international football games on that day of the week, and Amazon’s Prime Video has offered a Black Friday football game for the past few years.
Google’s business pact with the NFL largely centers around the “NFL Sunday Ticket,” the premium live football package that offers subscribers access to games played on CBS and Fox-owned or affiliated stations beyond their home region. YouTube and its streaming cable TV replacement YouTube TV have offered the package for the past two seasons, and will offer it again later this year. That partnership also allows YouTube to offer clips of NFL games and distribute content produced by independent creators that center around football games and the NFL experience.
Beyond the NFL Sunday Ticket, YouTube has not offered a football game in the United States on its platform. YouTube has streamed NFL events overseas in the past, though international rights to NFL games have been held by DAZN and other platforms in recent years.
The deal being considered for YouTube would allow the platform to offer the opening Friday NFL game for free on its platform, with global distribution rights, the New York Times reported. Subscribers of YouTube TV will also be able to view a feed of the game, the newspaper said.
The Friday game would kick off the NFL’s slate of international games, and is scheduled to be played in São Paulo, Brazil. The Los Angeles Chargers are participating in the game, with their challenger to be named at a later date.
YouTube will become the fourth core streaming platform to offer a live NFL game this year, should the deal come together. Amazon has long held the national distribution rights to Thursday Night Football, which streams on Prime Video and Twitch. Netflix offered two Christmas Day NFL games last year, and will share rights to this year’s Christmas Day games with Amazon.
NFL games broadcast by NBC are available on Peacock, while games aired on CBS are available through Paramount Plus. The Walt Disney Company’s ESPN makes a few “Monday Night Football” games available on ESPN Plus each year. Games from Fox will stream on a dedicated platform for the first time ever when the network releases it later this year.
The full schedule of international NFL games for the 2025 season will be released next Tuesday, and the schedule of domestic games will be announced on Wednesday.
