Ted Sarandos Says Netflix Would Explore Full-Season Big League Sports “If We Could Make The Economics Work”

deadline.com:

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos called live sports on the streamer “a really fantastic thing” but said dipping into the NFL, WWE and more “doesn’t really change the underlying economics of full-season big-league sports being extremely challenging.” “We want to be able to bring value to the sport, like we have to date with WWE certainly, like we have with the NFL too, where we were basically able to bring a big audience, a young audience, a more global audience than linear television.

But that has to be reflected in the deal as well.” The platform has a long-term licensing deal with WWE, two NFL games on Christmas day and late last year inked a deal for the 2027 and 2031 Women’s World Cup.

Asked on a video call after reporting earnings earlier today whether full season rights would also be attractive, Sarandos said it depends on price.

Sports rights’ costs have been skyrocketing as almost the sole programming guaranteed to aggregate a big audience, and with other streamers from Apple to Amazon jumping in to snap up packages. “If there was a path where we could actually make the economics work for both us and the league, we certainly would explore,” Sarandos said. RELATED: Netflix Aims To Keep L.A.-Based Production On Track In Wake Of Wildfires After “A Really Tough Couple Of Years” In Hollywood, Ted Sarandos Says Queried specifically on a possible deal with the UFC — about the only major rights opportunity coming on the market in the next few years — he declined to comment.