Ted Sarandos says Netflix would explore full season and big league sports ‘if we could make the economics work’

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos called live sports on the streamer “a really fantastic thing” but said diving into the NFL, WWE and more “doesn’t really change the game.” underlying economics of the full season, with big league sports being extremely difficult.”

“We want to be able to bring value to the sport, as we have done so far with WWE, certainly, as we have also done with the NFL, where we have been able to attract a large audience , a young audience, a more global audience than linear television But this must also be reflected in the agreement.

The platform has a long-term licensing deal with WWE, two NFL games on Christmas Day and late last year signed a deal for the 2027 and 2031 Women’s World Cup. In a video call after announcing his results earlier in the day about whether the rights for a full season would also be attractive, Sarandos replied that it depended on the price. Sports rights costs have soared, as it’s almost the only programming guaranteed to amass a large audience, and other streamers, from Apple to Amazon, have jumped in to buy packages.

“If there was a path where we could actually make the economics work for both us and the league, we would certainly explore it,” Sarandos said.

Asked specifically about a possible deal with the UFC – the only major rights opportunity coming to market in the next few years – he declined to comment.

His thoughts on live sports aren’t necessarily new, but today he delved a little into what Netflix can do for leagues, getting excited about the views and engagement for both games in the NFL: “We’re really excited about the viewing. We’re excited about all of this” – and praising WWE’s success on the streamer.

Wrestling, in its first week on Netflix, attracted about 5 million views, he said, about twice the audience that Monday Night Raw was on linear television. “We hope to grow the league’s audience. We also saw this in non-live viewing, so the day after the live event our viewing increased by 25%, primarily outside of US time zones. So this is new viewing in the UK and Canada, with Mexico, Australia and Brazil being a particularly large market.

“Just, you know, not to be too repetitive, but we’re going to be paying attention to the results and it’s really important that those economics work. And big league sports, full league, full season economics, are very difficult to make work.