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Netflix's live sports strategy is predicated on finding games and tournaments it believes can be turned into events. That makes defining "event" paramount to the company's success. "The thing about an event is it's buzzy, cultural, zeitgeist — that really sort of unmissable moment," said Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria in an exclusive interview last week with CNBC Sport. "There's something in that that just feels like it's very appointment TV, but also with great conversation around it." Bajaria spoke from Melbourne, Australia, the site of the first-ever, regular-season NFL game in the country. Netflix owned the global rights to the game, which resulted in a 27-7 victory by the San Francisco 49ers over the Los Angeles Rams. CNBC asked Bajaria if NBC's "Sunday Night Football," the most popular primetime program for 15 consecutive years, would classify as a Netflix "event." "If I had a dollar for every time I'm asked that, that money would just pay for 'Sunday Night Football,' and I wouldn't even have to take it out of the $20 billion content budget," Bajaria joked. "The first NFL game [ever on Netflix] was Christmas Day, right?" Bajaria said. "So we're like, Christmas is a holiday, Beyoncé is gonna do the halftime, and we can sort of turn that into an event. And it can be World Baseball Classic in Japan. It can be Home Run Derby, but it also can be Alex Honnold Taipei 101, when he climbed a building. It can be when we did the BTS concert in Seoul." Bajaria's explanation suggests a large package of NFL games isn't suitable for Netflix's strategy, which echoes comments from Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos earlier this year. The NFL can potentially renegotiate its media rights for games beginning after the 2029-30 season, when the league has an opt-out clause on its current deal. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told CNBC last week that the league would consider reworking its established game packages. Netflix is airing five NFL games during the 2026-27 season — last week's Australia game, the first-ever Thanksgiving Eve game, two Christmas Day games and a Week 18 game that's guaranteed to be one of significance — either to decide a playoff spot or to determine seeding. The NFL doesn't currently sell a package of international games, but that might be appealing to Netflix if it existed, Bajaria said. There are nine international games this year and 10 scheduled for next season. "We obviously have this large global audience and a very engaged global audience," Bajaria said. "I think people will probably just go to that as kind of like a natural, 'Would we do international?' We have lots of U.S. members who obviously love NFL and football, and so I think we're always going to continue to have conversations." Bajaria also confirmed Netflix's potential interest in bidding on the FIFA Men's World Cup in 2030 and 2034. Netflix already has the Women's World Cup U.S. and Canadian rights for 2027 and 2031. CNBC first reported Netflix's interest earlier this year. "Obviously it's a beloved sport around the world, and we have the Women's World Cup, so I'm really excited about that. We have a great partnership and relationship with FIFA, so we're definitely going to always have those conversations," Bajaria said. Ingesting other streamers At the same time more media companies are pushing into live sports, the legacy players are also inking new strategies for streaming. YouTube announced in July it would ingest content from NBCUniversal's Peacock into its Premium subscription platform, a new model for the industry. Bajaria suggested Netflix could be open to a similar arrangement. She called an existing partnership with France's TF1 Group a "test" to embed live content from other media companies in its service. "The business is changing," Bajaria said. "We can partner with TF1 locally, and that was sort of a conversation to like, oh, let's try to test it." Bajaria specifically noted NBCUniversal as a company that already partners with Netflix in a variety of ways, which she said can sometimes help both companies get comfortable with the idea of trying something like ingestion. Netflix already has an exclusive licensing deal with Universal on its feature films. NBC Sports also produces live sports on Netflix, including last week's Australia NFL game. "What I love is we can continue to grow and evolve the business," Bajaria said. "There's already a natural partnership in most of these countries, and so that's going to always be continuing the conversations." Competing with YouTube Still, Bajaria isn't interested in completely rewriting the rulebook. She dismissed the idea that Netflix would change its business strategy to compete with YouTube and other short-form video services. YouTube's streaming market share consistently grows each month, according to Nielsen data. For July, the video platform accounted for 14.2% of all streaming viewership. Netflix was the No. 2 service at 7.8%. But Bajaria said she has no plans to change course at Netflix: TV series and movies will continue to be the platform's bread and butter, she said. "It's too hand-wavy or dismissive to say, 'Oh, young people only watch short things,'" Bajaria said. "When we make things for young people that they feel are really authentic and great, they will come. And that's the business. We're still in that. We support creators and filmmakers and visions. We invest in film and TV. Really great stories connect with people all day long." Correction: This article has been updated to correct a transcription error in a quote attributed to Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria. She said, "The thing about an event is it's buzzy, cultural, zeitgeist."
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