While the NFL accounts for 44% of the entire sports broadcast rights spend in the US, the money looks to be well spent. A new report from Ampere has identified a 77% boost to customer sign-up in the US for Virtual Multichannel Video Programming Distributors (vMVPDs) carrying channels with NFL rights.

Starting in September and ending with the Super Bowl in February, the NFL is the most popular sports event in US. 44% of US sports fans say they enjoy the NFL, with 43% of those saying it is their favourite competition. As such, the NFL can be a powerful subscription driver for companies acquiring broadcast rights. Many NFL games are available on free-to-air channels including NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox. These channels are carried by VPMVDs as well as many of the premium channels.

For vMVPDs, and many other platforms carrying NFL games, the sign-up rate is consistently high throughout the season. The biggest sign-up drivers, however, are the start of the season - for those who want to watch it in its entirety - and the Super Bowl - for those who want to see the competition’s biggest game 

During March to August (off-season) vMVPD services collectively received an average of 29,000 sign-ups per day since 2020. This increased 77% to 51,000 during the on-season (September-February), highlighting the impact of the NFL. Over the same period, in contrast, streaming services without NFL games rose by just 2.5% during NFL seasons.

The biggest potential threat to vMVPD services in the future is the sale of games and packages as exclusives to streaming services. Peacock’s exclusive playoff game generated just over 2m subscriptions in one weekend, for example, while Paramount+ generated around 2.4m sign-ups on the day of the 2023 Super Bowl.

Currently, vMVPDs can thrive even without direct investment in the NFL, acting in a mutually beneficial way with broadcasters by extending the advertising reach of games. However, if the shift to streaming exclusives continues, vMPVD services will have to either invest directly in rights or provide access to streaming services as an aggregator to continue attracting subscribers.