Isaiah Wright, a running back featured on the Netflix series "Last Chance U, is playing football for the Alcoa Alloys, a semipro team with the Interactive American Football League on Saturday, April 6, 2019. 

Kns Isaiah Wright

‘Last Chance U’ stars sue Netflix, others for $30M

Six former junior college football players are seeking $30 million in a lawsuit that claims they were portrayed inaccurately on the Netflix docuseries “Last Chance U,” Front Office Sports reported Tuesday.

The athletes, who were featured on the show while playing at East Mississippi Community College during the 2015 and 2016 seasons, reportedly filed the suit in Los Angeles earlier this month.

Netflix, East Mississippi Community College, the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA), production company Conde Nast and the executive producer of “Last Chance U” were listed as defendants in the case.

The players argued that they were portrayed in “misleading, offensive, or highly objectionable” ways and were not paid for appearing in the successful docuseries, even though East Mississippi Community College profited through merchandise sales and Nast got “a large amount of money from Netflix.”

“Make no mistake, each of the defendants have been unjustly enriched by intruding upon the private lives of the plaintiffs, taking unfair advantage of them through defendants’ superior bargaining power, manipulating many of plaintiffs’ characters, along with other means for their own financial gain while sacrificing any decent reputation plaintiffs had,” John Pierce, the players’ attorney, wrote in the suit.

Players were also repeatedly pressured to sign contracts without knowing how the show was being marketed, the suit alleged.

“Plaintiffs were misled and unaware of the potential commercial value the footage had,” the lawsuit said. “However, defendants were aware of the high probability the documentary would turn into a highly profitable production.”

One of the players, Ronald Ollie, contended that his portrayal on the docuseries contributed to him going unsigned by the Baltimore Ravens and being released by the then-Oakland Raiders during the 2019 preseason.

“The image that Ronald Ollie being lazy, unmotivated, and lacking work ethic is a false narrative,” the lawsuit said. “However, ‘Last Chance U’ portrayed him in a false light which destroyed career opportunities for Ronald Ollie.”

Netflix declined Front Office Sports’ request for comment, while the other defendants did not provide a comment.

John Franklin III, Cary Sidney Reavis II, Deandre Johnson, Tim Bonner and Isaiah Wright were the other five plaintiffs who appeared on the football version of “Last Chance U,” which ended in 2020 after five seasons.

–Field Level Media

Dec 25, 2024; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA;  Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes (middle) and tight end Travis Kelce (right) open their Netflix Christmas GameDay cake after the Chiefs defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers at Acrisure Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images

NFL’s Christmas games on Netflix drive historic audience

The NFL’s foray into placing exclusive Christmas Day games on Netflix resulted in the the-most streamed television day in United States history.

Nielsen announced Friday that Dec. 25, 2024 was the first in the history of its measurement to top 50 billion viewing minutes (51.219), with streaming representing nearly half of total television consumption (49.5 percent) for the day.

Netflix led the way with its two exclusive NFL games. The first game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers generated 2.9781 billion viewing minutes, only to be topped later in the day when the Baltimore Ravens’ victory over the Houston Texans drew 2.9783 billion.

That was nearly six times as many viewing minutes as the third most-streamed program for the day, with the movie “Red One” drawing 517.8 minutes, followed by 333.2 million for “Carry-On” on Netflix.

“This is a Christmas story of how all streamers are finding success balancing new and evergreen programming on streaming,” Nielsen SVP of product strategy Brian Fuhrer said in a statement. “While live football was the highest profile and most-viewed, the diverse slate of original and classic shows and movies really resonated with audiences.”

The NFL also had driven the previous most-streamed day in history with Amazon’s exclusive rights to a wild-card game on Jan. 11.

Nielsen announced Monday that it Out-of-Home (OOH) measurement now covers 100 percent of the contiguous U.S. television population.

–Field Level Media

Dec 25, 2024; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA;  Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes (left) and tight end Travis Kelce (right) open their Netflix Christmas GameDay cake after the Chiefs defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers at Acrisure Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images

NFL Christmas games on Netflix set streaming records

Despite blowouts in both Christmas Day games, Netflix drew a record audience of nearly 65 million total streaming viewers in the United States for the Kansas City Chiefs-Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens-Houston Texans matchups, according to Nielsen on Thursday.

The early-afternoon matchup, featuring the reigning Super Bowl champion Chiefs rolling to a 29-10 victory at the Steelers, drew an average of 24.1 million viewers, per Nielsen, while the late-afternoon showdown between the Ravens and Texans — a 31-2 Ravens rout — topped the earlier stream with 24.3 million viewers.

Per Nielsen, they were the two most streamed NFL games in U.S. history, with Ravens-Texans peaking at more than 27 million for Beyonce’s halftime performance.

Compared to last year’s Christmas Day tripleheader broadcast with CBS, ABC and Fox each showing one game, this year’s doubleheader didn’t experience a noteworthy decline. In the first of a three-season Christmas Day partnership with the NFL, Netflix drew an average of 24.2 million viewers, compared to 28.68 million viewers in 2023.

Among viewers ages 18-34, Ravens-Texans was the most-watched Christmas Day game on record with 5.1 million viewers in the U.S.

“Bringing our members this record-breaking day of two NFL games was the best Christmas gift we could have delivered,” Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria said in a statement. “We’re thankful for our partnership with the NFL, all of our wonderful on-air talent, and let’s please not forget the electrifying Beyonce and the brilliant Mariah Carey.”

–Field Level Media

A custom WWE Championship with a Netflix sideplate.

Netflix ‘totally ready’ for XMas NFL games, WWE

Netflix continues to express confidence that its streaming platform is prepared to handle the massive audiences expected for a pair of Christmas Day NFL games along with the start of its live coverage of the World Wrestling Entertainment’s “Raw” next month.

Concerns were raised after users experienced issues with buffering and low quality feeds during the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson boxing match last month.

Netflix has exclusive rights to stream NFL games on Christmas Day between the Kansas City Chiefs at the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens at the Houston Texans.

Beyonce is scheduled to perform during halftime of the Ravens-Texans game, which could create more server traffic Netflix must take into account.

It’s a major test after the company reported an average global live audience of 108 million viewers for Paul’s victory over Tyson in Arlington, Texas. Downdetector.com, which tracks service outages, announced that there were 90,000 issues reported at one point.

“It was a big number, but you don’t know, and you can’t learn these things until you do them, so you take a big swing,” Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria told Front Office Sports. “Our teams and our engineers are amazing, moved super quickly, and stabilized it, and many of the members had it back up and running pretty quickly. But we learn from these things.

“We’ve all obviously done a lot of stuff to learn and get ready for the NFL and Beyonce, and so we’re totally ready and excited for WWE.”

WWE president Nick Khan told FOS that Raw’s tone and content will not change as it moves to the streaming service, with its first event of 2025 scheduled for Jan. 6.

“There’s some online chatter about, ‘oh, it’s going to be R-rated, or for us old folks, X-rated.’ That’s definitely not happening,” Khan said. “It’s family-friendly, multi-generational, advertiser-friendly programming. It’s going to stay that way. I would look for more global flair, especially as the relationship continues to develop.”

–Field Level Media

Kansas City's Patrick Mahomes starts to run with the ball when he can't find an open receiver late in the fourth quarter. His run for a first down was waived off when his team got called for a penalty. The Bills hosted Kansas City Chiefs in Orchard Park, Nov.17, 2024.

Netflix exec: ‘Very ready’ for XMas NFL games despite Paul-Tyson issues

Despite having viewers deal with frequent buffering, low quality feeds and other stream-related issues during Jake Paul’s victory over Mike Tyson in a boxing match on Friday night, Netflix is fully prepared to prove its worth as a sports streaming service.

Netflix will get to air a pair of NFL games on Christmas Day, providing streams for meetings between the Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans.

Beyonce is scheduled to perform during halftime of the Ravens-Texans game, which could create more server traffic that Netflix will have to account for.

“We feel very ready and excited for the NFL on Christmas,” Netflix content chief Bela Bajaria said, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Sixty million viewers tuned into Netflix for the Paul-Tyson fight, with Downdetector.com, which tracks service outages, announcing that there were 90,000 issues reported at one point.

“This unprecedented scale created many technical challenges, which the launch team tackled brilliantly by prioritizing stability of the stream for the majority of viewers,” Netflix chief technology officer Elizabeth Stone wrote in a memo issued to the company following the bout, according to a reporter at Bloomberg. “We don’t want to dismiss the poor experience of some members, and know we have room for improvement, but still consider this event a huge success.”

CBS Sports will be helping out on the production side of things on Christmas Day. However, it will be Netflix that is responsible for how the viewing experience turns out.

–Field Level Media

NFL legend Tom Brady is all smiles before an NFL football game at Huntington Bank Field, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024, in Cleveland, Ohio.

Report: Fox rebuffs Netflix request for Tom Brady on Christmas game

Fox rejected a request from Netflix to have Tom Brady and Kevin Burkhardt call one of the two NFL games the streaming service will broadcast on Christmas, the New York Post reported Wednesday.

Brady and Burkhardt are in their first season as Fox Sports’ lead NFL broadcasting duo. Brady joined the booth this year as an analyst after an illustrious 23-year career as an NFL quarterback with the New England Patriots (2000-19) and Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2020-22) before retiring in February 2023. He signed a reported 10-year, $375 million deal with Fox Sports.

The Post reported that Netflix is now eyeing CBS’s Ian Eagle and his son, NBC play-by-play man Noah Eagle, along with Fox analyst Greg Olsen and CBS talent Nate Burleson as potential fits.

Whether NBC and Fox would let Noah Eagle and Olsen, respectively, call a game for Netflix is unknown, per the Post. CBS, meanwhile, is a third-party affiliate of the streaming service.

Representatives for Netflix and CBS declined to comment, while Fox and NBC were not immediately available for comment, the Post reported.

Netflix, which has never aired an NFL game, is reportedly spending roughly $150 million to air this season’s Christmas doubleheader. The Kansas City Chiefs visit the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Houston Texans host the Baltimore Ravens.

–Field Level Media

Holiday vibes for fans at the Jacksonville Jaguars and Tampa Bay Buccaneers game at Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports

Netflix, NFL unwrap football for Christmas through 2026

Treading further into territory once reserved for NBA broadcasts, the NFL plans to continue airing games on Christmas Day beyond the 2024 doubleheader on Netflix announced on Wednesday.

NFL Vice President of Media Hans Schroeder said Thursday the league already has outlined plans for Christmas games in 2025 and 2026. Since Christmas is on a Saturday in 2027, it’s a near certainty regular-season games will be played that day, too.

“Amazon will have their traditional Thursday night game in primetime on Christmas on Thursday next year, and we’ll have another game on Netflix in the afternoon,” Schroeder said on a conference call discussing the league schedule for the 2024 season released Wednesday.

“Netflix will have a game on Friday the year after that (2026). We’ll use how we think about ’25 to form how we go into ’26.”

With Christmas falling on a Wednesday in 2024, the four teams involved were scheduled for Saturday games the week before to emulate the Saturday-to-Thursday game week schedule.

Traditionally, the NBA is the only game competing for airtime with a scarce sports broadcast schedule on Christmas Day. After ratings showed sincere interest from fans in Christmas games in 2023, the NFL claims it decided to commit to more in future seasons.

All three games had more than 27 million viewers according to Nielsen, ratings that piqued the interest of the NFL. The games were peeled out of the full network broadcast agreements and Netflix reportedly bid $75 million for each of its three holiday games.

VP of Broadcast Mike North said the NFL “wasn’t thinking about” scheduling on Christmas 2024 at this time last year.

“When you saw the viewership numbers for Christmas for the tripleheader last year, and the tripleheader the year before — I think it’s four of the last five years that we’ve played on Christmas — the fans have spoken,” North said. “They want the games there and our broadcast partners want the games there.”

–Field Level Media

Dec 10, 2023; Chicago, Illinois, USA;  Santa Claus, the Grinch and other fans cheer for the Chicago Bears in the second half during a game against the Detroit Lions at Soldier Field. Mandatory Credit: Jamie Sabau-USA TODAY Sports

Netflix to broadcast NFL’s Christmas Day games

As the streaming service pointed out with Wednesday’s announcement, you can’t spell Netflix without NFL.

Netflix has landed a three-year deal to serve as the exclusive host for two Dec. 25 games in 2024 and at least one game on the holiday in both 2025 and 2026.

“There are no live annual events, sports or otherwise, that compare with the audiences NFL football attracts,” Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria said. “We’re so excited that the NFL’s Christmas Day games will be only on Netflix.”

The 2024 Christmas Day lineup feature two games that could be key in the AFC playoff picture: the Kansas City Chiefs at the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens at the Houston Texans.

“We couldn’t be more excited to be the first professional sports league to partner with Netflix to bring live games to fans around the world,” said Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s executive vice president of media distribution.

“The NFL on Christmas has become a tradition and to partner with Netflix, a service whose biggest day of the year is typically this holiday, is the perfect combination to grow this event globally for NFL fans.”

Netflix has had a partnership with the NFL for the past couple of years, starting with the hit series “Quarterback” in 2023. This summer, “Receiver” will chronicle the on- and off-field adventures of five of the league’s best pass-catchers during the 2023 season: Davante Adams, Justin Jefferson, George Kittle, Deebo Samuel and Amon-Ra St. Brown.

–Field Level Media

Dec 20, 2020; Atlanta, Georgia, USA;  Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady (12) waves after defeating the Atlanta Falcons in a NFL game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

Netflix to air live roast of Tom Brady on May 5

Tom Brady may need to dust off his helmet, shoulder pads and other protective equipment.

Netflix announced Monday that the seven-time Super Bowl champion quarterback will be the guest of honor at a live and uncensored roast streaming from the Forum in Inglewood, Calif., on May 5 at 8 p.m. ET.

“The Greatest Roast of All-Time” will be hosted by actor and comedian Kevin Hart.

Netflix promised an “all-star lineup of surprise roasters,” who will be taking shots at the man many consider the NFL’s G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All-Time).

The company said it is the first time in history that a roast has aired live and unedited on television or streaming.

“No Helmets. No Mercy. No Brady Rule,” the streaming service posted in a video on X.

Brady, 46, told the “TODAY” show on Monday that he can handle the heat.

“I played in the NFL, so I’m not worried about a bunch of comedians, trust me,” Brady said.

A three-time league MVP and five-time Super Bowl MVP, Brady is the NFL’s all-time leader with 649 touchdown passes and 89,214 passing yards in 23 seasons for the New England Patriots (2000-19) and Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2020-22).

–Field Level Media

Jan 7, 2024; Paradise, Nevada, USA; Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Davante Adams (17) misses a pass in the end zone against the Denver Broncos during the fourth quarter at Allegiant Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports

Davante Adams, Justin Jefferson among stars of Netflix’s ‘Receiver’

Davante Adams, Justin Jefferson and three other big-name pass catchers are starring in Netflix’s docuseries called “Receiver,” the streaming service announced Tuesday.

The star wideouts of the Las Vegas Raiders and Minnesota Vikings, respectively, will be joined by the San Francisco 49ers duo of Deebo Samuel and George Kittle as well as Detroit Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown.

The eight-episode series is scheduled to start in the summer.

“Receiver” is a continuation of Netflix’s relationship with the NFL that first began with “Quarterback” in 2023. The production is a joint endeavor with NFL Films, Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions and Patrick Mahomes’ 2PM Productions.

“The natural progression is from a pass to a catch, so we’re excited to dive into the ‘Receiver’ world after the success of our ‘Quarterback’ series,” Netflix executive Gabe Spitzer said. “NFL Films, Omaha Productions and 2PM Productions have delivered again in finding unique and dynamic athletes who will further highlight the drama of this sport on and off the field.”

Manning said he was “excited” to give fans a closer look at some of the best receivers in the NFL.

“As we did with ‘Quarterback,’ we look forward to telling the stories of five incredible receivers, each with their unique personality, skillset and motivation for what drives them to be the best.”

–Field Level Media