Why Netflix Fell After NFL Record

Afternoon Edition

December 27, 2024

The NFL’s Christmas doubleheader on Netflix resulted in the league’s two most-streamed games ever. Why, then, is the tech giant’s stock down in the first day of trading after numbers were released?

—Eric Fisher and Colin Salao

Netflix Set an NFL Streaming Record. Why Is Its Stock Down on Friday?

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Netflix had a seminal moment in the company’s history on Wednesday with its highly successful Christmas Day streaming of an NFL doubleheader. The stock market, however, has already largely recognized the company’s many accomplishments this year, and Friday’s market action did not include any sort of incremental NFL bump.

Shares in the streaming giant fell by 1.8% Friday, closing at $907.55 per share, in what was the market’s first chance to respond formally to Nielsen data released late Thursday showing that Netflix averaged more than 24 million viewers for the two NFL games—setting a new mark for the most-streamed NFL games in U.S. history.

Often, big news like that would immediately send shares upward, particularly given that the NFL games are a foundational piece in Netflix’s broader ambitions in live-event streaming and the advertising business that goes with it. But in what was a generally lighter day of market activity amid the holiday week, the football success is largely pre-baked into the current valuation.

The slide for Netflix shares on Friday, following a separate drop of nearly 1% the day before, was part of a broader market decline. Even with this retreat, Netflix stock has increased nearly 94% this year.

Analysts, meanwhile, believe there is still plenty of room for growth for Netflix’s earnings and stock price in 2025, particularly if price increases happen for the first time since January 2022—joining a series of major streaming services that have done in recent months. During the company’s last earnings call with analysts, Netflix co-president Greg Peters said “we love the low price point and increased accessibility that comes with our ad plan. It represents an incredible value.” But expectations are growing for that stance to change, at least somewhat.

“Based on U.S. price points, Netflix is still roughly half the cost per hour of cable TV, and materially lower than movie tickets,” wrote KeyBanc.

“With more live events coming, we believe the probability of price increases is increasing,” the firm’s analysts said.

Different Situation

The rather muted market reaction to the NFL metrics Friday differs materially from what happened last month after Netflix’s release of internal data related to the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson boxing match.

Even as that event suffered from widespread buffering issues, Netflix shares still rose by 3% after the release of the highly debated audience metrics, reaching another in what had been a series of company records.

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NBA Christmas Miracle Defused TV Ratings Crisis in One Day

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Basketball is often a game of runs, and the NBA just had a big one in its viewership with the five-game slate on Christmas Day. But will it be enough to redefine the season and its current image?

Even in the wake of historic, and much larger, totals for the NFL and its streaming debut on Netflix with four Super Bowl contenders, the NBA’s average of 5.25 million viewers for its Christmas games soared by 84% from a year ago. That draw was capped with the Lakers’ win over the Warriors, which was the most-watched Christmas Day NBA game in five years at 7.76 million.

Perhaps most impactful, though, was the material shift in the NBA’s year-over-year viewership decline, which shrank from 18% before Christmas to just 4%. What had been a defining storyline of the season, even after striking transformative media rights deals kicking in next year, could soon become something else entirely.

“The NBA that everyone has grown to know and love was on display [Wednesday],” former NBA player Matt Barnes said on Instagram, part of a still-growing series of major stars that are speaking publicly on the viewership issue, and he praised the high quality of play happening throughout the day and night.

“I think it’s [commissioner] Adam Silver’s job to figure out how to bottle that up and keep the momentum,” he said.

A key factor for the NBA will be to retain at least some of this holiday energy through the next six weeks—a period traditionally dominated by the NFL playoffs—until the All-Star Game weekend, set for Feb. 14-16 in San Francisco, when basketball returns to the forefront of sports conversation.

Postseason Watch

The individual NBA game ratings from Wednesday, meanwhile, also reaffirmed how important LeBron James, turning 40 on Monday, and 36-year-old Steph Curry still are to the league.

As the Lakers and Warriors led the way on the holiday viewership, each player starred again as James scored 31 points and Curry had a game-leading 38 in the 115-113 win for Los Angeles. Both teams, however, are still squarely on the playoff bubble. The Lakers are in sixth place in the Western Conference, only a tiebreaker removed from the play-in tournament, while the Warriors are in 10th, just a half-game out of missing the postseason entirely.

The league’s fans, however, have yet to fully move on to the next generation of stars, and would be advantaged significantly by one or both of the aging stars and their teams reaching the playoffs and making a meaningful run.

NFL Sets the Stage: The Year of Private Equity In Sports

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It’s still early days in the development of private equity in sports, but 2024 was undoubtedly the year that this form of outside investment truly became mainstream in the industry. It’s laid the foundation for a very different future in the business of sports.

The NFL led the way, finally approving in August a structure that allows a preapproved group of private equity investors to invest in teams. But the most dominant of sports leagues wasn’t alone. Each of the other major pro properties expanded their own roles with private equity during the year, while college sports even began to move into this area. Executives from this area also aggressively became a force in global team ownership, particularly the Premier League.

“We have the benefit of having a lot of interest in the investment community,” said NFL EVP of finance Joe Siclare, following the league’s 31–1 vote to create its private equity structure.

That will likely soon prove to be quite the understatement. Already, the NFL has approved private equity investments for the Bills and Dolphins, and more such deals are in development elsewhere in the league. “It’s an access to capital that I think has been of interest to us for a long time,” said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. “I think it’s a positive development for us.”

For more on why PE firms are all-in on football and what team owners are doing with their newfound liquidity, you can read Eric Fisher’s full story here.

Colorado Stars' Grand Finale

Many top players sit out bowl games before they declare for the draft. Thankfully, that’s not the case for Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter, who will suit up for the Alamo Bowl after the school took out record insurance policies on their behalf.

According to TickPick, the average purchase price for tickets to the game between Colorado and BYU is $197–making it the most expensive Alamo Bowl on record and 55% more expensive than last year’s game between Oklahoma and Arizona ($127). The current “get-in” price is $127.

Colorado coach Deion Sanders won a Super Bowl with the Dallas Cowboys in 1996 and lived in the area for a long time. TickPick reports that 68.8% of all purchases have been made in Texas, while 4.8% have come from Colorado.

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Status Report

Two Up, Two Down

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DeSean Jackson ⬆ The 38-year-old, who made three Pro Bowls as a receiver and kick returner, has been hired as head coach at Delaware State. He is the second former NFL player to be hired at an HBCU this month, following Michael Vick, who took over Norfolk State. Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, who coached Jackson with the Eagles, said he would “stake my career on his success at Delaware State.” Jackson made $91.6 million in his NFL career.

Miami ⬇ Just two years after reaching the men’s Final Four, coach Jim Larranaga announced he was stepping down. The 75-year-old cited exhaustion and the changing NIL landscape as key reasons for his departure. “I just didn’t feel like I could successfully navigate this whole new world that I was dealing with because my conversations were ridiculous,” Larranaga said.

Bills offensive line ⬆ Many quarterbacks get gifts for their offensive linemen, with this year’s presents ranging from swords to segways. The Bills flipped the script, with linemen giving Allen a custom diamond chain necklace reading ‘MVP’ above his jersey number, 17.

Mariners ⬇ MLB.com reported that Seattle and Boston discussed a deal in which the Mariners would send starting pitcher Luis Castillo to Boston for Triston Casas, one of MLB’s best young first basemen. However, Seattle, which badly needs hitters, balked upon being asked to take on designated hitter Masatake Yoshida, who has three years and $55.8 million remaining on his contract. Seattle currently has the sport’s 18th-highest 2025 payroll and has reached the postseason in only one of the last 23 seasons, a consistent source of fan aggravation.

Conversation Starters

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Teddy Bridgewater retired from the NFL in 2023, then coached his high school alma mater to a state title this year. He’s returning to the NFL after signing a deal with the Lions.