The NFL is making moves to expand its already expansive reach.
The league and its rights holders have announced multiple rights agreements in recent days that will bring more NFL coverage to more audiences — especially on broadcast.
Fox Corp.'s FOX Sports, which holds US rights to Super Bowl 2025, has reached a deal with NBCUniversal Media LLC for Telemundo Deportes to provide additional Spanish-language coverage of the NFL title game. Under the agreement, Fox-owned cable network FOX Deportes (US) and NBCUniversal-owned broadcast network Telemundo (US) will present separate productions of the Super Bowl from the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans on Feb. 9, 2025.
The agreement, financial terms of which were not disclosed, marks the first time there will be two Spanish-language broadcasts of the game.
Ad sales implications
The agreement will also provide Telemundo with some ad sales opportunities — albeit for its stations, rather than the network.
Fox-sold inventory will air nationally within Telemundo's coverage from kickoff through the Lombardi Trophy ceremony, a Telemundo spokesperson said in an email. Telemundo stations will be able to sell regional and local inventory during those breaks in the coverage.
FOX has reportedly sold out almost all of its in-game inventory for its presentation of Super Bowl 2025.
FOX Deportes' Super Bowl ad lineup will largely mirror that of the broadcast network's, according to a FOX Sports spokesperson. Some of those messages are expected to run in Spanish.
TelevisaUnivision Inc.'s Univision (US) secured US Spanish-language Super Bowl rights for the first time from CBS Sports with Super Bowl 2024. CBS Sports parent Paramount Global does not own a Spanish-language service.
Univision's coverage of the Kansas City Chiefs' overtime win against the San Francisco 49ers generated an average audience of 2.3 million viewers, according to data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics. This delivery surpassed Telemundo's previous Spanish-language NFL championship game record of 1.9 million watchers for Super Bowl 2022, when the Los Angeles Rams topped the Cincinnati Bengals.
FOX Deportes drew 882,000 viewers on average for its presentation of Super Bowl 2023, when Kansas City edged the Philadelphia Eagles.
Together, CBS (US), Nickelodeon/Nick At Nite (US), streaming service Paramount+, Univision, TelevisaUnivision's streaming service ViX and NFL digital outlets combined to average 123.7 million viewers. Paramount Global said Super Bowl 2024 was the most-watched telecast in US history.
ABC 'Monday Night Football' additions
The news about the two Spanish-language Super Bowl broadcasts marks the second time in recent days that the NFL has looked to expand its audience base. NFL games rank as the most-viewed content in the US.
On Oct. 11, the NFL announced that ABC (US) would add six "Monday Night Football" simulcasts from ESPN (US) to its roster, kicking off with the New York Jets-Buffalo Bills on Oct. 14.
Adding the new simulcasts to the contests already scheduled, ABC is set to carry "MNF" in 11 of the 13 remaining NFL regular-season weeks. All told, ABC will air 14 simulcasts with ESPN, including a pair of playoff games, and three exclusively on the broadcast network this season.
The NFL expanded ABC's slate last year to all regular-season weeks in the wake of the writers' and actors' strikes that hamstrung the entertainment landscape in late 2023. NFL, ABC and ESPN-parent Walt Disney Co. said the parties made a joint decision to add more "MNF" games to the broadcast network this season. Disney is paying some $2.7 billion annually under its 11-year rights deal that began in 2023 and extends through 2033, the most of any NFL rights holder.
With the "MNF" package cutting across ESPN, ABC, ESPN Deportes and ESPN2, the league's original prime-time package enjoyed its best season since 2000, with the matchups ahead 29% to an average of 17.36 million viewers. The delivery marked the best "MNF" performance since ESPN became the primary rights holder in 2006.
Season so far
On Oct. 7, ESPN and ESPN2 together averaged nearly 16 million viewers for coverage of Kansas City's win over the New Orleans Saints. The delivery was the highest for an "MNF" matchup that was not simulcast on ABC going back more than 50 games to November 2019, and it ranked fourth dating back more than 135 games to the 2015 season.
Excluding Peacock's exclusive coverage of the Week 1 game between Philadelphia Eagles and the Green Bay Packers from Brazil on Sept. 6, NFL carriers averaged 17.55 million watchers across linear and digital platforms through Week 5. That's up 1% from the same point of the 2023 regular season and marks the league's best mark through that point of the season since the 2015 campaign. Peacock's carriage of the Week 1 game is an outlier because of its streaming exclusivity and its international location.
NFL games have accounted for 29 of the 30 top telecasts since it kicked off its current campaign on Sept. 6, according to the league.
