It was only three years ago the NFL signed a media rights deal that welcomed Amazon Prime Video (AMZN) into the fold as the exclusive home of Thursday Night Football.

At the time, the $13 billion, 11-year deal was viewed as a disruptive force that would forever alter the state of television and the status quo of sports media rights.

But more than any other major league, the NFL loves television and its wide distribution. Case in point: Within its new media rights deal was news the NFL would return to Disney's (DIS) ABC network on Monday nights, with the network also airing the Super Bowl in 2027 and 2031, ending what will be a 21-year absence.

The league also kept its primary packages in place with CBS (PARA), Fox (FOXA), and NBC (CMCSA). Moreover, the Amazon games are still broadcast over the air for free on local networks.

"The model for us, today at least, is we want to be on linear and digital," Hans Schroeder, executive vice president and COO of NFL Media, told Yahoo Finance. "Streaming is clearly continuing to grow, and I think that'll be a bigger and bigger part of our future as we look forward."

"But to us, it's not an 'either-or' ... Pay TV is under a tremendous amount of pressure, but we've always been more tethered to broadcast and free to air."

Historically, the NFL has been careful not to place too much of itself and its games behind a paywall.

Yet, in the last two seasons, that strategy has begun to shift in what the league describes as "the next step" of its product.

Netflix (NFLX), which previously said it wasn't interested in the business of live sports, inked a three-season deal with the NFL earlier this year to air Christmas Day games. The streamer reportedly coughed up about $75 million per game, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Similarly, Peacock will host one exclusive in-season game — a Friday night game in Brazil on the season's first weekend — after it aired an exclusive Wild Card playoff game last season. The platform, which paid a reported $110 million for the rights to the playoff game, saw a significant lift in subscribers as a result.

Google's YouTube TV (GOOG, GOOGL) now holds the exclusive rights to NFL Sunday Ticket, which makes out-of-market games available to fans nationwide.

"You have to meet consumers where they are," Anthony Palomba, professor of business administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, told Yahoo Finance. "That is something that I think up until recently has been lost on all of the major CEOs of media companies. You can't keep doing what's familiar."

Schroeder said the shift to more digital-first, streaming partners is one that "feels less revolutionary this year" and "more like the next step in the evolution."

"For us, it all starts with wanting wide, broad reach of our games," he said. "That's why 85% [of our games] are on broadcast television. It's really a smaller part that aren't. All games are on broadcast in their home markets."

"But we also need to be smart. We know our fans are increasingly spending their time on other screens, other platforms, and we need to be on those platforms too."

'A mutually beneficial relationship'

As the media landscape has changed and consumers turn away from cable bundles more and more, sports sometimes feels like the only thing left to watch on TV.

And when it comes to sports on TV, the biggest audiences aggregate in one place: NFL football. NFL games on TV accounted for 93 of the 100 highest-rated shows on TV in 2023.

"We were a big part of the growth of broadcast TV," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter last year.

"It was a mutually beneficial relationship. We reached a much broader audience, and it helped them develop to the point where we even developed a fourth network with Fox in the early ’90s. And that wasn’t just a sports network, that was a network."

"Now it’s streaming, and I think a large part of that is advertising and subscription and dual revenue streams, and that’s the case here," he said.

Some experts see the recent move to carve out one-off games — Black Friday on Amazon, Christmas on Netflix — as the beginning of a broader trend for the league.

"It's in the league's best interest to start to create more skinny bundles or smaller packages that they sell," Adam Paul, executive director of TV at data company LiveRamp, told Yahoo Finance. "You're going to see more breaking down of the games or packages into smaller parcels because they can increase the fees that they ultimately get across all of their distribution."

But the NFL said these one-off games are more of the exception than the rule.

These games "are a great way to go onto platforms in a smart way, [but] most of our rights, most of our packages will be more than just a couple of games," Schroeder said.

That being said, there's no denying the recent hype around the Olympics has reshaped what's possible in terms of how leagues (namely, the NFL) think about distributing their content.

"The one thing that is unique about the Olympics, but I think other leagues will have to pay attention to, is there's so many events and sports teams going on at once," Paul added. "I could choose to tune in to any event that I wanted to watch at any time throughout the games."

"And so, the most basic and obvious way to think about that for the NFL is, I might live in New York, but I could be a Cowboys fan. That's what consumers want: The optionality to watch the thing I want to watch when I want to watch it."

'Consumers are getting savvier'

The NFL isn't the only league seeing the value of its sports rights go up. Nor has it been the most creative when it comes to divvying up its schedule.

The NBA, for instance, signed a new media rights deal this year worth around $77 billion over 11 years with new partners that include Amazon and NBCUniversal. It was also able to strike a new agreement with one of its current media partners, Disney. The league did not re-sign with its other partner, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD).

This new deal will see playoff games, including conference finals series in six of the deal's 11 years, air on Amazon Prime.

Meanwhile, the MLB has national television contracts with broadcasters including ESPN, Fox, and TBS. Connected TV platform Roku (ROKU) recently acquired the rights to "Sunday Leadoff," which broadcasts MLB games primarily held on Sunday afternoons, and Apple TV+ airs Friday night games.

Some have argued all of this optionality may lead to more confusion over when, where, and how to watch. The NFL has implemented tools, like a new help center, to combat this confusion, offering fans a personalized view of how to watch games based on location.

But there's also more access to sports content today than ever before. And more games in more places is the ultimate audience motivator.

"Consumers are getting savvier," said Paul. "They'll figure it out. Just the rise in streaming has made consumers smarter about how to consume the content that they want to watch."

To that point, TV consumption on streaming has been on a steady rise.

According to the latest installment of the Gauge report from Nielsen, streaming hit another record in July, accounting for 41.4% of overall TV viewing. YouTube led the charge, becoming the first streaming platform to break 10% of total TV viewing time.

'How can TV be more like gaming?'

A push to lock in the next generation of NFL fans is central to how games are distributed, and the NFL has even played with the actual broadcasts in an effort to engage younger fans.

"Younger generations really like gaming and social media just as much, if not more, than television and movies," said UVA's Palomba, who specializes in entertainment and consumer behavior. "How can gaming be more like TV? How can TV be more like gaming?"

Last year, ESPN and the NFL teamed up for a "Toy Story Funday Football" — a fully animated, alternative telecast between the Jaguars and Falcons. CBS also aired a "Nickelodeon NFL Nickmas Game" last season and aired an alternate feed of the Super Bowl that featured characters like SpongeBob SquarePants offering commentary on the game.

"We're still in the early days of figuring out the right way to bring the live game in combination with these other experiences together," said Schroeder. "But the good news is that the opportunity ahead of us is so wide."

Amazon has also leaned in to a more engaged user experience, airing QR codes and interactive banners for viewers to actively shop while watching last year's Black Friday games.

ESPN has also found success with the Manningcast, an alternate live TV experience of Monday Night Football hosted by former NFL quarterbacks Peyton and Eli Manning, and tried this format across other sports, like college football and golf.

"The gamification of NFL football enables greater engagement and satiates younger consumers' [tendencies] to eventually switch to a more interactive experience," Palomba said of the recent experiments.

"If you're in the business of making a profit, if you're in the business of maximizing audiences, you're always looking for different eyeballs," Palomba said. "Wherever you can find them."

Alexandra Canal is a Senior Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X @allie_canal, LinkedIn, and email her at [email protected].

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