Which streaming services do fans now need? What to know, as NFL gives Christmas to Netflix.

Not so long ago, you needed only the major over-the-air networks and a few cable channels to watch virtually any significant sporting event.

No longer.

Decisions by the NFL, NBA and other leagues have left fans reaching into their pockets to pay for subscriptions to a handful of streaming services, incurring costs they never needed to worry about just three years ago.

And, for some, that trend will continue on Christmas, when Netflix will televise NFL games for the first time.

The streaming giant, which has more than 270 million subscribers, made a big splash by paying $150 million to acquire rights to two Christmas NFL games: Kansas City-Pittsburgh at 1 p.m. and Baltimore-Houston at 4:30 p.m.

CBS will produce both games but Netflix will use announcers from CBS, NBC, Fox, NFL Network and ESPN. Three CBS announcers — Ian Eagle and studio analysts Nate Burleson and J.J. Watt — will call the Chiefs-Steelers game. NBC’s Noah Eagle will call the Ravens-Texans game with Fox’s Greg Olsen.

Netflix began dabbling in outside-the-box sports programming earlier this year, including a tennis exhibition between Spain’s two biggest tennis stars, Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz. A Nov. 14 Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight was marred by technical errors and freezing, but Netflix has assured the NFL that won’t happen on Christmas.

Per the Associated Press, the Tyson bout peaked at 65 million concurrent streams, including 38 million concurrent streams in the United States. Nearly 85,000 viewers logged problems with outages or streaming before and during the fight, per the website Down Detector.

Netflix is the nation’s most profitable streaming service; in the first quarter of this year, it reported revenue of $9.4 billion and net income of $2.3 billion. A Netflix standard plan costs $6.99 per month with ads and $15.49 per month without ads.

Besides landing two NFL games, Netflix made another big splash this week, landing rights to the 2027 and 2031 Women’s World Cup.

Beyond Netflix, an update on what streaming services you’ll need to have access to all major sports between now and the end of next year:

Amazon Prime Video

— Cost: $14.99 per month or $139 per year.

— What’s offered: If you prefer to spend on just one streaming service, this probably has become the most essential one for sports fans.

Amazon is carrying a third season of “Thursday Night Football” and also acquired rights to a Saturday wild-card playoff game that streamed on Peacock last season.

Amazon will carry Thursday NFL games again next season, including a Christmas night game. Al Michaels, 80 is expected to return on play-by-play.

Also, Amazon is spending $1.8 billion annually for an NBA and WNBA package beginning in 2025-26.

That Amazon NBA package includes six conference finals over 11 years, the NBA’s in-season tournament, the play-in games, a Friday night double-header and Thursday night games after NFL season ends, plus some exclusive playoff games.

Also, Amazon’s NBA deal includes 30 regular-season WNBA games annually, a first-round WNBA playoff series each season, seven semifinals and three WNBA Finals series over 11 years.

Beyond the NFL and the NBA, Amazon also has NASCAR races, NHL games in Canada and Champions League soccer in England, Italy and Germany.

And at some point in 2025, Amazon will begin streaming FanDuel Sports Network cablecasts of some NBA and MLB teams, including the Heat and Marlins. Everyone, including Amazon subscribers, will be required to pay an additional undetermined fee to access Amazon’s streaming of local NBA and MLB games.

Netflix, Amazon and Disney are the only streaming services with more than 200 million subscribers. But many of those subscribers have Amazon subscriptions primarily as a purchase platform, rather than for the programming content.

As perspective, 33 million U.S. homes now have cable television and only 13 million have satellite service, mostly DirecTV or Dish Network.

ESPN Plus

— Cost: $11.99 per month or $119.99 a year. There’s also a bundle of ESPN Plus, Disney Plus and Hulu for $15 a month, with all three streaming services carrying ads in that package.

— What’s offered: Many of the marquee events on ESPN Plus also air on ESPN or ABC, but there are exceptions. ESPN had one exclusive NFL game this season: Chargers at Arizona on Oct. 21.

ESPN Plus has a full slate of exclusive NHL games and select WNBA games, plus international soccer events including the EFL Championship, U.S. Open Cup and Bundesliga; Ivy League, Big Sky and Atlantic 10 conference sports; some ACC and SEC football and basketball games that aren’t picked up by ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU; and select golf and tennis events.

ESPN Plus allows subscribers to purchase UFC play-per-view events and access an extensive archive of on-demand content, including the entire 30 for 30 series and game replays.

Apple

— Cost: $9.99 per month.

— What’s offered: Apple, which produces more original non-sports content than most streamers, owns rights to Major League Soccer and Friday night MLB games.

MLS Season Pass — which carries the league’s matches on TVs, phones and other devices — costs $13 per month or $79 for the season if you’re already a subscriber to the Apple TV Plus streaming service. If you don’t subscribe to Apple TV Plus, MLS Season Pass costs $15 a month or $99 for the season.

Apple also has carried several sports documentary series, including The Dynasty: New England Patriots; Messi Meets America; Real Madrid: Until the End and Stephen Curry: Underrated.

Peacock

— Cost: $7.99 per month or $79.99 per year.

— What’s offered: Besides simulcasting NBC’s sports coverage (including all its NFL games), the network has acquired enough exclusive sports content to make itself more important for fans.

Though NBC’s streaming service won’t have an exclusive NFL playoff game again this season, it had exclusive rights to the Eagles-Packers game from Brazil in Week 1.

Meanwhile, NBC’s new NBA deal, which begins in 2025-26, will give Peacock an exclusive Monday night double-header and two Tuesday night NBA games, one of which will air on your local NBC affiliate.

On Tuesdays beginning in the 2025-26 season, NBC plans to carry one NBA game at 8 p.m. that will air in the Eastern and Central Time zones on NBC affiliates and one game at 11 p.m. that will air in the Mountain and Western Time zones. Both games also will stream on Peacock, meaning viewers in the East will be able to watch the Western game on Peacock and vice versa.

Peacock already owned exclusive rights to one Notre Dame game and a few Big Ten football games each season; Premier League soccer and select cycling, motorsports, golf, college basketball and rugby events.

Peacock also streams some Olympic events that aren’t on NBC or NBC-owned cable networks.

YouTube TV

— Cost: $82.99 per month.

— What’s offered: The streaming service is paying about $2 billion annually for NFL Sunday Ticket, the out-of-market NFL service which was carried on DirecTV before last season. (DirecTV still owns licensing rights for restaurants and sports bars.)

YouTube has changed the price of Sunday Ticket depending on the time of year; before the season, it cost $449 for a standalone subscription through YouTube Primetime Channels.

For an additional $40, subscribers can add NFL RedZone, which shows highlights from all Sunday NFL games. Next year’s prices haven’t been determined.

Paramount Plus

— Cost: $8 per month, or $13.00 per month for the Showtime plan, which includes access to Showtime’s live sports coverage, such as boxing and MMA. Those are also available as annual packages for $60 and $120, respectively.

— What’s offered: Besides all CBS Sports programming, Paramount exclusively carries than 360 matches per year from Brazil’s Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A soccer league, as well as all matches from the Italian Serie A league.

Other exclusive programming includes the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, UEFA Europa Conference League and soccer matches from the NWSL, FAWSL, and AFA.

Paramount Plus also live streams the Masters (including coverage that’s not on CBS), PGA Tour event, the Argentine Primera Division and programming from CBS Sports HQ, which streams sports news content 24 hours per day.

Bundle options

In May, Comcast (which owns Peacock) announced it would offer its broadband customers a bundle of Peacock, Netflix and Apple Plus for $15 per month.

Venu, a new sports streaming joint venture, planned to charge $42.99 per month for access to all sports programming from ABC/ESPN/ESPN Plus, as well as Fox and Turner Sports. But a federal judge blocked the planned launch of Venu, with a trial scheduled for February.

Meanwhile, ESPN plans to launch a direct-to-consumer service at some point next year, which will allow viewers to cancel their cable or satellite subscriptions and receive all ESPN programming if they chose. The cost reportedly will be $30 or so a month.