New Report Says It’s Likely Streamers Will Get Five-Game NFL Packages

1. Quick note before we start. I was going to do a mailbag today and asked for questions via my social media channels on Thursday. However, there is a good amount of content I want to share today, so I’m going to postpone the mailbag until one day next week. So if you’d still like to get a question in, just email me at Jimmy.Traina@si.com.

Puck’s John Ourand had some very eye-opening nuggets regarding NFL broadcast rights in his latest newsletter.

According to Ourand, when it’s time for the NFL to renegotiate its broadcasting deals, which they have the option do later this year if they don’t want to wait until 2029 when the current deals expire, streamers will get a much bigger chunk of the pie.

That’s not surprising since the NFL has been headed in that direction for a while. But it’s worth noting that fans should expect many more standalone windows.

Ourand says the NFL will “carve out separate slates of games for Netflix, Amazon and YouTube. That model would likely include five games each, including the four international games the league took back from NFL Network and the two Christmas Day games that Netflix currently has for one more year.”

This is good news for CBS and Fox, which obviously could be vulnerable to losing a Sunday afternoon package if one of the streamers wanted a piece of that action.

Ourand says the streamers only want standalone, big event games, such as Opening Night, Black Friday, Christmas Day, etc.

The one network, according to Ourand, that could be in a little bit of trouble is NBC, with Amazon perhaps wanting to trade in its Thursday night package for Sunday night.

2. There seemed to be some confusion, in addition to performances of fake outrage, on social media Thursday when ESPN announced it was starting “Women’s Sports Sunday.”

The idiotic opinions reacting to this tweet are amazing. https://t.co/y2KOLI19qa
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) February 19, 2026

Some people tried to twist this into, “ESPN dumped Major League Baseball for women’s sports” and got all worked up.

The truth, which fewer and fewer people seem interested in these days, is that ESPN lost its Major League Baseball package to NBC/Peacock, so now the network will air WNBA and NWSL games on Sunday nights in the summer.

It’s really not that deep.

3. Good stuff here from The Streamable, which recaps a survey that reveals fans are paying $125 a month to watch sports on television. Remember when streaming was supposed to make things cheaper? That was funny.

Even as the cost of watching live sports grows and grows, a new survey finds that nearly 90% of Americans are watching. But exactly how much does it cost to watch major sports events these days?https://t.co/7GjYa7Zfml
— The Streamable (@TheStreamable) February 19, 2026

4. This happened in late January, but it’s just making the rounds on social media now. We’ve all seen players across sports suffer ACL injuries while in action, but we’ve never seen a poker player tear an ACL while competing. Until now.

when poker player Justin Smith TORE HIS ACL at a $1,100,000 @WPT Final Table 😱 pic.twitter.com/p9w1NkM67L
— World Poker Tour (@WPT) January 26, 2026

5. I’m not the biggest fan of AI generated content, but this is an exception since it comes with an original song. Plus, it’s always enjoyable to make fun of the Jets.

6. This week’s SI Media With Jimmy Traina features a conversation with Ben Koo, the owner and editor of Awful Announcing.

The podcast covers all things Awful Announcing, including the history of the site, Koo’s philosophy for what to post and not post, the dilemma in amplifying terrible people in sports media, whether Koo feels the company is respected within the sports media industry, the site’s relationship with the networks that air sports and much more.

Following Koo, Sal Licata from SNY TV joins me for our weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment. This week’s topics include issues with trying to purchase MLB.tv through ESPN, the run of celebrity deaths, an iPhone problem that I’m having, Sal’s wild use of “legend” to describe a WWE announcer and more.

You can listen to the SI Media With Jimmy Traina podcast below or on Apple and Spotify.

You can also watch SI Media With Jimmy Traina on YouTube.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: Happy 63rd birthday to Charles Barkley.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on X and Instagram.