Football Behind a Paywall: Why Lifelong Fans Are Turning to Piracy Instead of Peacock
By EJ Thomsen | 27 October, 2025
The first NFL streaming deal led to Amazon’s Thursday Night gridiron takeover. (Amazon)
Background
The NFL has dominated the broadcasting landscape for decades now and has remained the most lucrative professional sports organization in history, amassing over $26 billion in revenue in 2024, with the second closest organization, the NBA, having only generated $12 billion in revenue. Just this year, the NFL Hall of Fame Game, a virtually meaningless preseason match, had more viewership, at 6.9 millions views, than the average NBA playoff game (excluding the NBA Finals) at 4.5 million viewers. At the start of the 1960s, 90% of households in America had a television in their possession. With consumerism on an upward trajectory, broadcasting companies thought that the implementation of live sports would force consumers to fully watch commercials since the average person would rather stay on the same channel during a good game compared to constantly flipping back and forth between channels, potentially missing a highlight play. This development worked so well that the NFL started selling off broadcasting rights to exclusive broadcast companies, such as CBS, ESPN, FOX, NBC, and ABC. Promptly, cable bundles started to become the main way that fans had access to watch their games. Cable companies would bundle multiple channels, recognizing people craved and valued channels like live sports, while others paid no mind to channels such as ‘Gung Hoo.’ But the cable bundle would continue to sell, regardless of price change or different channels being added to the bundle because it was necessary to have cable in order to enjoy live sports. It was a well-oiled machine. CBS has AFC games while FOX has NFC games. NBC has Sunday Night Football and ESPN and ABC have Monday Night Football. These deals made football accessible to pretty much everyone, being available through basic cable television, to make football the most watched sport in the United States. During this time, talk shows and general sports highlights produced by ESPN started to become extremely successful. To capitalize off this new content strategy in sports shows, in 2006, the NFL made the landmark decision to create their own cable network, simply called ‘NFL Network.’ Fans loved this decision, bringing early morning updates and takes with ‘Good Morning Football,’ all of the statistics and data that a fan could want in ‘NFL Total Access,’ and to be able to connect on a personal level with all-time great players and coaches with ‘A Football Life.’ In 2009, the league made their masterpiece in ‘Redzone,’ providing nonstop football for the entirety of the morning and afternoon games. Yet, with this singular move, the downfall of that oh-so-familiar Sunday ritual began.
Broadcasting Blackouts, the Internet, and the Birth of Streaming Services
Before going any further, it is important to discuss one of the major drawbacks of cable live sports with broadcasting blackouts. In short, live sports broadcasting blackouts are when the attendance of the physical game is lower than predicted, so in order to incentivize people to go watch the game in-person, regional districts were drawn so that if a fan was in the local region of a specific game that they were trying to watch, it would not be shown. Fans were extremely outraged by this, so much so that in 2014, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) caved to public pressure and stopped the federal support of live sports broadcasting blackouts and eventually, in 2015, the NFL suspended the blackout policy. Even though this did not have any immediate ramifications directly, it set a precedent of proving that fans have a voice, and that the NFL will listen. Of course the NFL is not going to listen to everything the consumer, the fan, has to say; however, the NFL does have to listen to the consumer based on viewership numbers and ticket sales, and when these numbers start dropping, the NFL will start changing.
Something else that must be taken into consideration is the fact that the internet has become the main source of sports news, not television. Any fan can go on the internet and watch highlights from any game they want to watch, search up any statistic they are interested in, and receive instant notifications and game day updates with social media. The necessity to own a T.V. or a cable box in order to watch every single football game is an obsolete belief, and the amount of people realizing this fact keeps increasing. Things like recording the game if you are not home or hoping that one game does not go into overtime to impede the broadcasting hours of the game you actually want to watch are now things of the past.
Christian McCaffrey is a highlight machine, fans constantly get notifications saying he scored or see electric plays on social media. (Yardbarker)
Staying updated is not even the most important aspect of the internet when it comes to traditional cable box television. The emergence of streaming services has created an extreme amount of competition for viewership. It started out with companies like Netflix paying broadcasting and cable companies for specific shows in full. This gave people the opportunity to watch the show they wanted no matter the day or time for a low monthly subscription price of $7.99. This blend of flexibility and affordability skyrocketed Netflix and other streaming sites into the next frontier of entertainment. Now, multiple other media giants, such as Disney and HBO, have hopped on the streaming services trend by creating Disney+ and HBO Max. Just like how cable companies felt invincible in that no one would ever stop paying for their cable bundles, streaming service platforms have acquired this same invincible feeling, steadily increasing and fine-tuning their subscription plans to maximize profits. For instance, the same standard Netflix subscription has increased from $7.99 in 2011 to $17.99 in 2025, as well as the premium plan which has increased from $11.99 to $24.99. Although these price increases have come with major backlash, these streaming companies seem to not budge, further solidifying the strangle that they have over the media market as a whole.
The NFL’s Dicey Streaming Service Deals
In 2022, the NFL made a revolutionary $100 billion deal with Amazon to sell the exclusive rights of Thursday Night Football to be streamed on Amazon Prime over the course of 11 years. Although this initially did not seem like a huge deal, as it did not affect the ‘Sunday ritual,’ it was the start of the NFL dividing their exclusive rights into smaller and smaller bits, now selling them to both broadcasting companies, cable companies, and streaming services. In 2023, Peacock and the NFL came to the agreement of streaming one Wild Card playoff game for $110 million. Now, by the start of the 2025 season, the NFL has made deals with six streaming companies: Youtube TV, Peacock, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Paramount+, and ESPN+. This also includes FOX One and NFL Sunday Ticket to watch the games already bought by the broadcasting network, FOX, to make the total number of streaming sites needed in order to watch all NFL games eight.
Visual Picture of how NFL structure their exclusive rights. (Luminate Intelligence)
The NFL’s rapid expansion into the streaming service market can be attributed to multiple key motives. First, the NFL recognizes that younger people are not going to be paying for a costly cable box bundle instead of just buying a comparatively inexpensive Amazon Prime subscription. To ensure that the new generation of consumers and fans are extremely loyal and dedicated to the NFL, they have decided to provide their services on the sites that young fans are most likely to already be visiting. Second, this allows for competitive bids for exclusive rights of games. With more and more streaming companies wanting a piece of the biggest sports media industry in the world, they are more likely to bid larger and larger amounts of money in order to gain streaming rights and draw more people to their sites. An additional incentive to go with multiple companies is that they each have a different international reach. The 2025 season has been evidence of this being a huge goal for them as there are set to be seven international games, primarily being played in Europe where there are already established fan bases for other existing international sports. Expanding into new markets on other continents opens up so many new partnerships and sponsorships, new stadium revenues, more merchandise sales, and even the ability to scout for talent outside of the United States. By placing, for example, Amazon Prime against ESPN+, the NFL is tapping into Amazon’s global reach to entice casual people interested in learning about football, while also providing other established global sports fans a new exciting sport to get attached to. Finally, the NFL is trying to stay adaptive and ahead of the curve. It is no secret that traditional cable T.V. that has been enjoyed by consumers in the United States for over fifty years is now becoming more and more outdated. Slowly transitioning from cable networks to streaming platforms ensures that the NFL is staying relevant and accessible to people across the world in a rapidly changing digital entertainment landscape.
It costs the same for a die hard fan to watch every game authentically as it is for someone to purchase two new IPhone 17s. (MarketWatch Reporting)
Online Piracy, the Real Hydra
From hidden camcorder videos inside movie theaters to CD rips of “In da Club” by 50 Cent, providing free versions of highly sought-after entertainment products has been a part of the internet since the introduction of the download feature. Piracy has taken many forms and has even been at the forefront of specific entertainment industries, such as the creation of Spotify as a competitor to music piracy. Although these products were free and very easily accessible, there were some major drawbacks that still made paying full price for the actual version better. For one, downloading a pirated movie or song could be infected with malware or a virus that could corrupt the computer being used. Another reason was that the quality was significantly worse than the actual product, as pirated media provided a product that buffered every twenty seconds, explicit ads invaded the screen, and audio that sounded worse than nails on a chalkboard. Most importantly, in 1998, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) made it illegal to download any pirated content, making it very risky to be caught in the position of a computer or thumbdrive containing some of the decade's classics. Over time, these piracy domains started to evolve into better and better platforms by gradually learning from their mistakes and implementing new technology to provide a better experience.
Even with the distribution of pirated media being a crime, and sites constantly getting shut down, new ones always seem to emerge right after. Pirated media companies learned from their previous mistakes, such as being caught by digital watermarking and content identification systems, to be less easily detected by government officials. Simultaneously, distributors would focus on creating better quality sites. It got to a point where this evolution became an existential threat to major entertainment media companies. In 2020, Congress passed the Protecting Lawful Streaming Act, enforcing harsher punishments to convicted pirated media distributors. Yet, this did not stop pirated streaming. More and more illegal streaming sites kept popping up under the same name but with different domains.
Streameast became the world's highest visited pirated live sports site in the world, perfecting the formula of comfortability and efficiency. (Morning Brew)
Streameast has perfected this formula to become the most widely known pirating sites in the world. With high quality HDR streams and virus free sites, Streameast amounted 1.6 billion site visits in 2024, with about 136 million monthly average visits across their 80+ domains. Just for some perspective, ESPN only averaged 110 million visits per month in 2024. The reach that Streameast has been able to accumulate has been groundbreaking as it cannot rely on professional marketing teams to promote it, but only through word-of-mouth wandering around the internet vouching for an amazing product.
Although Streameast and other pirating sites are nowhere close to the viewership numbers that the NFL is pulling in, they are legitimate competitors for continuing to gradually take up more market share. The main selling point that differentiates pirating sites and authentic streams, aside from the fact that one is free, is that pirating sites have every single game available in an all-in-one, easy to use platform. Fans do not have to pay for multiple subscriptions or go back and forth between one platform to another, fans can just make a simple google search and watch any game they desire. Sites have even started to pirate Redzone, allowing fans the flexibility to just watch one desired game, or every single game. With humans constantly desiring the most comfortable and efficient ways to go about their lives, pirating streaming services provide people with solutions for these pain points. Uncomfortable paying hundreds of dollars a month for multiple different streaming services? Pirating eliminates this worry. Tired or too lazy to constantly sign into different accounts for different games? Pirating eliminates this worry. The simplistic nature of these platforms is the real weapon and threat that the pirate hydra has at its disposal.
An Endzone Audible
Intuitively, one might say that the NFL should sue or seek criminal charges against these sites, but this is easier said than done. As previously mentioned, it is easier for the government to block a specific domain, but three more domains will come in and take its place. But the reason why the government cannot go ahead and enforce these laws is due to the fact that most of these sites are operated and maintained outside of the United States, resulting in government officials working with foreign local governments to try and get these people arrested. Most of the time there is no help or assistance. But in the case that there is cooperation between US authorities and foreign governments, such as earlier this year in August when a replica Streameast was shut down and the operators were arrested, nothing of substance comes to fruition. The US government specifically waited until the beginning of the NFL season to shut the site down and arrest the distributors because it knows it cannot remove piracy altogether. The timing was to tell pirated media users that they know what they are doing. But just as US authorities knew what was going to happen, the domain ‘streameast.xyz,’ which was banned, quickly got changed to ‘streameast.sk,’ erasing any significance the original ban had. This is the problem that will always arise, you cut off one head and three more will grow back, and everyone knows it.
In order for the NFL to keep raising the championship trophy of the biggest sports company in the world it will need to continue to adapt and to change to fans feedback to rapid streaming expansion. (LA Times)
If the NFL wants to attack and win the war against piracy, it has to improve their own product, not try and destroy the competition. One solution would be to choose one large streaming platform with a large amount of international reach to have all of the games available on. This would maintain the NFL’s goal of global reach while also mimicking the comfortable and efficient interface that is seen on pirated streaming services. Another solution would be to do something similar to what the NFL did in 2006 with the creation of NFL Network, and create their own streaming service platform which includes all of the games, Redzone, and all of their talk shows. Additionally, they could implement new interactive ideas such as having gametime scores, fantasy projections, or moneylines across the homepage where the fan gets to choose which pop-ups they would like to see. The last option, and the most unlikely outcome, is that they keep their same strategy of selling off exclusive rights to multiple streaming services, but they give their paying fans some other incentive. Such an incentive could be like how teams reward season ticket holders with official team apparel, but only for paying subscribers to these specific streaming platforms, giving back to fans to reinforce the emotional ties between the NFL and its most loyal supporters. Just like with any good relationship, it always has to work for both ends. These ideas are all just speculation, but if the NFL wants to continue to be the biggest professional sports organization in the world, it will have to continue to innovate and find new ways to keep existing consumers happy, while fostering an inviting atmosphere for new prospective fans.
Conclusion
The NFL’s shift towards fragmented streaming deals has changed the way fans access games, but not for the better. What was once a smooth, simple, unified viewing experience has now become an expensive puzzle, trying to figure out which subscriptions are needed out of the eight streaming platforms to get the best experience for the NFL season. By prioritizing short-term profits and rapid media expansion, they have unintentionally pushed some of the most loyal fans into the arms of piracy. To rebuild the trust between themselves and the fans, the NFL must read the defense and call an audible, simplifying access and putting fan experience back at the center of its playbook.
