An NFL YouTube Game Could Break Streaming Records – Front Office Sports

The NFL’s push to maximize exposure during the 2025 season is bringing in a new, but familiar, partner. The league is closing in on an agreement to have the Google-owned YouTube, distributors of the residential version of NFL Sunday Ticket, carry the Sept. 5 game in Brazil involving the Chargers as the home team. The deal, according to sources, will see the opening-week game from São Paulo include the Chiefs, the NFL’s top viewership draw, as the visiting team. By placing the game for free on YouTube, which boasts more than 2.5 billion monthly active users around the world, the audience is likely to challenge—if not surpass—the league’s streaming record of an average of 24.3 million viewers in the U.S., set last year in the nightcap of a Christmas Day doubleheader on Netflix. Production details for the Brazil game, however, remain unknown, and like other streamers, YouTube does not have the in-house capabilities to produce an NFL broadcast. The Brazil contest, shown last year on NBCUniversal’s Peacock, is additionally a centerpiece of the NFL’s expanding international strategy.  While YouTube prepares for its third season of carrying out-of-market games, the move sees the NFL continue to grow its relationship with streamers—in
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