Fans of American football in several European countries will soon have a new place to watch live games thanks to an expanded agreement between German broadcaster RTL Group and the National Football League (NFL).
On Thursday, the organizations announced the forthcoming launch of a new channel called Sky Sport NFL, which will offer live simulcasts of U.S.-nationally televised games from ESPN (“Monday Night Football”), Prime Video (“Thursday Night Football”) and NBC (“Sunday Night Football”), along with NFL RedZone hosted by Scott Hanson.
The channel will also serve as the exclusive home of the NFL’s international games during the season, with its 2026-27 roster involving matches in London, Munich and Madrid. Specialized programming, including game replays and recap shows produced in Germany, will fill out the schedule when NFL RedZone and live football are not airing.
Sky Sport NFL will be based in Germany, with distribution in that country, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, RTL Group said. (Some trivia: While RTL Group is the largest private broadcaster in Germany, the “L” actually stands for Luxembourg, where the company was founded in the 1930s and is still headquartered today.)
“Our vision from the beginning was to become the home of the NFL,” Inga Leschek, Managing Director of Content at RTL Deutschland, said in a statement. “With our expanded rights, we are making that vision a reality.”
Alexander Steinforth, General Manager for the NFL in the Germany-Austria-Switzerland (DACH) region, said the expanded partnership is intended to make American football accessible to more viewers in German-speaking countries at a time when the league is focused on expanding the global reach of the sport.
“By expanding our partnership, we are offering more live games on free-to-air television than ever before while creating the most comprehensive NFL offering to date across the German-speaking market,” Steinforth said on Thursday.
The expanded deal also includes a number of other elements pertinent to RTL Group’s programming and channels. A weekly recap show will continue to air on RTL’s male-focused premium network Nitro, while RTL itself will be able to simulcast some Sunday afternoon games on CBS and Fox through its terrestrial broadcast network. RTL also has the right to stream a third Sunday morning or afternoon game exclusively through its platform RTL Plus.
Financial terms of the expanded agreement were not disclosed.
Sky Deutschland was part of Comcast until last summer, when the U.S.-based telecom sold the company to RTL Group for $175 million.
