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Netflix reportedly has completed 90% of its NFL talent hire for 2026

Awful Announcing · Sam Neumann · 2026-09-10T14:01:51+00:00 · nguồn gốc

Netflix’s NFL broadcast roster is nearly locked in for the season. Gabe Spitzer, Netflix’s vice president of global live sports and entertainment, told Sports Business Journal’s Richard Deitsch that the streamer has completed roughly 90% of its NFL talent hires for 2026. Among the names Spitzer hopes to bring back is WWE superstar Seth Rollins for Netflix’s Bears-Packers game on Christmas Day, if schedules can work. Spitzer’s comments came during a wide-ranging interview that also touched on the Women’s World Cup, which Netflix will broadcast exclusively in the U.S., Puerto Rico and Canada beginning next summer, as well as the streamer’s growing interest in the men’s World Cup. Spitzer has previously told The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand that Netflix “will want to have the conversation” with FIFA about those rights. Netflix expanded from two NFL games to five for the 2026 season, picking up the Australia broadcast as one of four games the NFL redistributed following ESPN’s acquisition of NFL Media, paired with the new Thanksgiving Eve game between the Packers and Rams, two Christmas games, and a Saturday matchup closing out Week 18. That slate opens with the NFL’s first regular-season game in Australia, a Rams-49ers matchup at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which Netflix will use to introduce a broadcast team it intends to keep consistent across the rest of its 2026 slate: Elle Duncan hosting studio coverage alongside Michael Irvin, Nick Foles and Clay Matthews III, with Noah Eagle calling play-by-play alongside first-time analyst Luke Kuechly, MJ Acosta-Ruiz reporting from the sideline, and Terry McAulay serving as rules analyst. Tom Pelissero also makes his Netflix debut as a sideline reporter for that Melbourne broadcast, joining the streamer under a multi-year deal that also includes a role co-hosting The Ringer NFL Show. While Rollins remains a possibility for the Bears-Packers game, Netflix’s Christmas slate this year is actually a doubleheader, also featuring Bills-Broncos, and Eagle and Kuechly can’t be in two booths at once. Netflix said in its own announcement that “the studio desk and in-game broadcast team will also return across Netflix’s entire 2026-2027 NFL slate, with more names to come,” with the latter half of the sentence likely accounting for a meaningful chunk of the remaining 10% Spitzer says is still unfilled.