Watching Sports Now Requires a Spreadsheet and a Fortune

Photo: Alfonso Duran/The New York Times/Redux

Back in 1993, Fox paid $1.58 billion to air NFC football games for the next four years. It was a staggering deal that helped solidify the NFL’s cultural dominance, and it changed the very nature of sports and television. 31 years later, on Christmas Day a couple weeks ago, Netflix showed its first-ever NFL games, two very dull blowouts. It paid $150 million for the right to stream them exclusively. Yes, we’re at the point where it costs $150 million to air two NFL games.