• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, October 17, 2022

Ready for another TV-streaming game changer? It's all about scoring touchdowns.

Forget about streaming for the moment -- especially around scripted and unscripted shows. Just think about live sports, which continue to have a strong visibility on linear and to a lesser extent on streaming

The next big live-sports programming package -- NFL Sunday Ticket -- continues to tempt major big-time players, including all all the major direct-first, well-funded players -- Amazon, Apple and Google.

What about Netflix? Up until now, it has had an aversion to live sports. If anything it prefers video gaming, as a way to keep its platform looking young and fresh.

Still, think about its recent dramatic reversal, starting up its ad-supported option.

Who's to say Netflix won't make another pivot? Maybe live sports is in the cards.

Live sports not only draws in big viewers, but -- drumroll please -- big brand advertisers!

Starting up an advertising division by Netflix, and using it to its fullest potential, would mean considering inking deals for live sports.

Good news. This comes with hungry big brand marketers looking for increased reach, as linear TV networks continue to see lower reach -- at around 44% for big-time linear broadcast TV networks; and mid-teens reach for the average cable TV network.

Are brands interested in Netflix? Its current limited ad-supported option is “nearly sold out,” according to Jeremi Gorman, president of worldwide advertising for the company.

Consider this: Netflix is still the dominant streamer, so much so TV set manufacturers and pay TV system operators continue to offer up a special Netflix button on their remote controls -- because of consumer demand, according to Nilay Patel, editor in chief of The Verge.

Currently, DirecTV, who has had the “NFL Sunday Ticket” package for years -- where one can watch out-of -market NFL games pays $1.5 billion a year -- a deal which ends after this season. It could rise to a crazy-high $10 billion a year.

But for all the hype around the product, the NFL Sunday Ticket continues to have a nagging problem for live sports when it comes to the internet: Buffering, signal drops, crashing during moments of the game.

“All the NFL needs is to reliably stream the product over the internet -- and they cannot do that today,” Patel recently said on CNBC.

Maybe that is why DirecTV, in its last season, is giving the package away free to Choice-package subscribers -- eliminating the extra $395.94 fee it charges for a full season of Sunday Ticket.

Hey, Apple or Amazon, solve this problem and you'll gain strong consumer interest. Netflix? People are rooting for you.