Netflix Earnings: Future Ad Growth Hinging On Live Sports

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA - JULY 13: Jordan Walker #18 of the St. Louis Cardinals competes in the finals of the 2026 Home Run Derby at Citizens Bank Park on July 13, 2026 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Emilee Chinn/Getty Images)

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Amid the larger conversation around Netflix’s third quarter earnings on Thursday was the specific takeaway (which it had previously stated) that ad revenue is expected to reach $3 billion by the end of the year.

How it hits that mark, and grows beyond it, is directly dependent on its expanding slate of live programming. Specifically, live sports.

During the earnings call, Netflix touched on adding new live events (podcasts and sports) to the platform as a primary driver for ad revenue. And the service said it expects that live events will account for 5% of its content budget this year.

Existing Sports Properties

That investment was on full display this week, as Netflix aired Major League Baseball’s Home Run Derby for the first time. While its 5.3 million viewers were the event’s smallest audience since 2003, dropoffs are usually expected for any programming that shifts from traditional TV (broadcast or cable) to streaming.

Netflix will also air five live NFL games this regular season – all of which keenly focused on pulling in big audiences for an eventized property.

Along with the standout Week One game from Australia between the (Super Bowl favorite) Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers, Netflix will also air three separate holiday matchups.

First among those comes the night before Thanksgiving Day, between the Rams and Green Bay Packers. The service will showcase Christmas Day games between the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers, and the Buffalo Bills and Denver Broncos. The final Netflix game of the year is a to-be-announced matchup on Saturday 1 p.m. game during Week 18.

Netflix is also home to weekly WWE Raw events and various one-off fighting events as well. The annual MLB Field of Dreams game will take place in August, and the service has hosted golf events as well.

The service’s biggest swing, though, may be the rights it secured for the 2027 and 2031 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

World Cup Build-Up

In advance of Netflix landing live NFL games, the service was already exploring programming around football. And though it didn’t secure Formula 1 rights after years of airing the hit Drive to Survive, the show’s success became an integral part of F1’s growth and ability to cash in on increased U.S. interest for a greater media rights deal with Apple.

There’s a year until the Women’s World Cup, and the focus beforehand will be on the upcoming Netflix film The 99’ers – about the 1999 U.S. Women’s team that famously won the World Cup.

Beyond that, the service already houses two separate documentaries having to do with the squad: Under Pressure, which came out in advance of the 2023 event when the group was trying to win its third consecutive World Cup. And Hope Solo vs. U.S. Soccer, which documented the controversial goalkeeper’s story on and off the field, back in 2024.

The highly successful (four World Cup titles) soccer program doesn’t need to convince its audience to watch, necessarily. But Netflix might need to do some legwork around directing fans to the service to watch next year’s World Cup matches.

Airing The 99’ers is part of that effort. Perhaps acquiring the U.S. rights, at least, for friendly pre-World Cup matches from other federations could be, too. Unfortunately for Netflix, English-language rights for U.S. women’s team matches are owned by Turner Sports through 2030.

That means the door is likely (barring cost-cutting at the combined Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery) closed for next year’s World Cup. However, if Netflix so chooses, it could acquire U.S. women’s team rights in the short-term lead-up to the 2031 event.

What Else Is Out There?

Netflix has been choosy about which live sporting events it gets involved with. And if it sticks to allocating just 5% of its content budget there, that trend is likely to continue.

The NFL and Women’s World Cup also take up a large chunk of that budget during a given year, leaving some potential opportunities for additional carve-out events that are smaller in scale than those are. And with leagues desperate to create smaller packages out of games in order to maximize media revenues, deep-pocketed tech services like Netflix become easy partners.

Any potential expansion of live sports content could include MLB games, given Netflix’s new relationship there already. And given the sheer number of games on that schedule (162 per team, per year), other regional and national partners wouldn’t necessarily miss them if they were repackaged for Netflix.

With the NHL contract coming up after the 2027-28 season, there’s a chance that Turner Sports doesn’t stay involved. Netflix wouldn’t take over half of the slate of games, as Turner has with ESPN. But there’s a reality where an NBA Cup-like event (or at least nation-based all-star activities) could head over to Netflix.

College sports are also a ripe area for live sports expansion, especially after Duke signed a streaming deal with Amazon outside of the ACC’s Disney-owned rights package. The eventized nature of those potential games would have similar appeal for Netflix, should other big-name programs go that route.

With their sights set on ad growth, expect to see more news around Netflix and sports, not less, in the coming months and years.