After early success, the NFL plans more creator-led broadcasts

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That doesn’t mean creators like iShowSpeed — one of the four hired to air the opener — are replacing NBC or ESPN. The idea isn’t so much about reaching existing fans as it is to draw in those who might never otherwise have shown an interest. Few conduits work better than that than creators — the kind of personalities who sit at the center of internet culture and drive the conversation that orbit it. 

“We’re testing and learning,” he said. “Those ‘Watch With’ streams were just the beginning of us understanding what’s possible there.”

Future “Watch With” broadcasts will likely focus on regions where the NFL wants to expand the reach and the distribution of games, especially when paired with international matchups, said Trombetta. 

“With the international games, the rights aren’t as tied up so we can experiment more,” he added. “That’s why Brazil was a great template for that. We’ll see where the road takes us with the next rounds of negotiations. That said, one of our primary goals is to extend the reach and the accessibility of the game as much as possible. Creators are a great way to do that.”

How great remains unclear. The NFL hasn’t broken out how many of the 17.3 million global viewers who watched the match on YouTube did so through creator streams. Still, early results hint at the scale of their reach. Tom Grossi, an NFL-focused YouTube with nearly one million subscribers said his “Watch With” stream drew more than 1.4 million viewers — a personal record. Meanwhile, Portuguese-speaking channel CazeTV pulled in more than nine million views, including replays, according to Puck.

The numbers don’t show whether these creators brought in entirely new audiences, but they do suggest the league’s experiment is finding its footing. 

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As it does, expect the conversation about creators’ role in growing the sport to shift. The NFL’s experiment is more nuanced than a simple “reach new fans” play — a lesson learned the hard way. When the league partnered with top Twitch creators on a co-watching feature, it flopped. The takeaway was clear: people who don’t care about football aren’t going to start just because their favorite creator is livestreaming it. Fans, on the other hand, will follow the game wherever it goes. What the NFL is trying to do now, in partnership with creator agency Whalar, is find the middle ground between the two — broadening the funnel without losing the core. 

The NFL’s “Creator Flag Football Games” illustrate this shift. 

The non-contact exhibition, featuring a mix of celebrities, creators and athletes, streams on YouTube ahead of official games. The most recent one, held in London the day before the Denver Broncos faced the New York Jets at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, generated more than 60 million views online, according to the league’s vp of football operations Troy Vincent Sr. The game itself drew six million live views on the NFL’s YouTube channel — a gap that underscores how off-field entertainment is increasingly driving the league’s global reach. 

Naturally, YouTube will anchor much of that push. Its evolution into a de facto video hub across devices — and its status as the home of the NFL Sunday Ticket — makes it central to the league’s ambitions. Still, it’s just one node of a broader web of platforms, each playing a slightly different role in the NFL’s expanding global media playbook. If YouTube is the home of live broadcast experiments, Shorts extends that discovery, while Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat skew to cultural, off-field clips for casual viewing with cross-posting encouraged. 

“Creators have audiences who go across all borders,” said Trombetta. “They have a level of engagement that’s probably only similar to the NFL or someone like Taylor Swift. If we’re able to tap into that then it’s a great way for us to continue to expose the game, the players and some of the initiatives that we have.”

But it’s unlikely to end there. With next year’s media rights negotiations on the horizon, it would be short-sighted to assume these creator experiments are just about audience growth. They’re only a handful of games — but if the league ever moves toward an international 18th game, YouTube, with its global footprint and balance sheet, looks like an obvious contender and therefore the creators on it.

The NFL isn’t alone in thinking this way.

Earlier this year, Germany’s Bundesliga became the first top-tier soccer league to award live match rights in the U.K. to YouTube personalities like Mark Goldbridge. Similarly, the U.S. Tennis Association (USTA) granted official credentials to more than 50 creators to create content around this summer’s U.S. Open. The details differ but the intent is the same: sports leagues are rethinking who counts as a broadcaster — and who their future fans are most likely to follow. 

“For casual, younger NFL fans, watching a game via a creator like IShowSpeed can be a powerful on-ramp to deeper fandom,” said Amar Singh, svp, content & creative at MKTG Sports + Entertainment. “Our data shows Gen Z and millennials are 2.6 times more likely than Gen X and boomers to watch fan-created content such as watchalongs. So ultimately, this is about targeting younger fans with the right type of content.”

That’s also why the NFL’s work with creators stretches far beyond simulcasts. Trombetta oversees a player-first strategy that pairs athletes with creators across fashion, music and gaming — partnerships designed to keep football culturally relevant year-round. Projects like “Tight End University”, born from player ideas and amplified by NFL Films, double as both content IP and fan-development plays. Even at the team level, franchises like Los Angeles Rams and Detroit Lions have started running their own creator programs, building a networked model-of fandom that focuses on retention not just reach.

“Creators offer highly engaged fan communities and provide access to younger audiences,” said Singh. “Treating them as partners and bringing them ‘inside the circle’ can help sports organisations build audience resilience and create a multi-layered approach-reaching fans on the platforms they use and delivering content in formats they enjoy, such as watchalongs.”