Tomorrow’s Bears-Packers playoff game shouldn’t require you to download an app or pay for a streaming service just to watch it. Yet here we are. This marquee Wild Card matchup featuring two legendary divisional rivals — one playing at home in Chicago — will not air on Fox, NBC, CBS, or any other traditional broadcast network. Instead, the game will stream exclusively on Amazon Prime, relegating what should be prime television real estate to the streaming wars.
This scheduling quirk, seemingly minor on the surface, actually reveals something profound about where all professional sports are headed: nowhere beats global reach and monetization anymore. The Christmas games proved it. Netflix and Amazon didn’t just break viewership records on December 25 — they did it with mediocre football matchups that, in any other era, would have felt like a missed opportunity. The Lions-Vikings game averaged 27.5 million U.S. viewers and peaked above 30 million, while the game on Prime Video averaged 21.06 million. Those are eye-popping numbers, but here’s what matters: neither game had the playoff intensity or star power you’d normally expect for record-breaking viewership. Instead, the real story was the global audience — Netflix reported that the Lions-Vikings game averaged 30.5 million viewers globally, while the Cowboys-Commanders game drew 22.4 million from over 200 countries and territories.
That global component is the entire point. When MLB reported its 2025 World Series numbers incorporating Canada and Japan, the league wasn’t padding statistics — it was reflecting a fundamental truth about where sports revenue and growth now live. The Dodgers-Blue Jays series, anchored by Toronto’s presence and Japan’s superstar Yoshinobu Yamamoto alongside Shohei Ohtani, averaged 8.1 million viewers in Canada and 9.7 million in Japan. Game 7 alone drew 51 million combined viewers across the U.S., Canada, and Japan, the largest global World Series audience in 34 years.
The Cubs and Astros both understand this market dynamic, even if they approached it differently during 2025. Kyle Tucker, who played for the Cubs after being traded from Houston, helped drive crossover appeal when the Cubs and Astros matched up in June, with Tucker’s trade representing the kind of talent movement that generates international interest when marquee players change teams. Shota Imanaga, the Cubs’ Japanese pitcher and Rookie of the Year candidate, literally personified the international value equation — his presence guaranteed strong viewership numbers in Japan, regardless of team performance. And let’s not kid ourselves, the Astros just signed Tatsuya Imai last week so they will surely be getting more viewers out of Japan in the next couple seasons.
The infrastructure shift is already accelerating beyond the NFL’s current four-network carousel. For the 2026 season and beyond, the NFL will reportedly implement a 17-week international slate that will permanently establish a fourth Sunday window, expanding beyond the traditional Sunday afternoon CBS/FOX doubleheader and early/prime time NBC window. Per reports, four streaming platforms are ready to pounce on this. This isn’t a test market anymore — it’s infrastructure. The 2026 schedule already shows how it will work. The Rams will play a game in Australia, the Commanders and Falcons will both host international games, and this entire apparatus exists because global audiences drive sponsorship rates, merchandise sales, and — most importantly — streaming subscriber acquisition.
What’s happening at the professional level is cascading down to college sports with remarkable speed. Arizona State and Kansas will play at Wembley Stadium in September 2026, part of a multi-year agreement that’s turning London into an annual college football destination. TCU and North Carolina are already locked in for Ireland. Michigan faces Central Michigan in Frankfurt, Germany, for Week Zero. The Big 12’s Brett Yormark isn’t hiding his ambitions: I want this conference to be a global conference. I think we can win globally big-time, he said at media day. These games aren’t being played overseas just for the novelty. They’re being played because international venues guarantee media rights fees, sponsorship premiums, and merchandise opportunities that simply don’t exist for a Tuesday night game in Lawrence, Kansas.
The pattern is undeniable. When Netflix set the Lions-Vikings viewing record with 27.5 million U.S. viewers, Snoop Dogg’s halftime show averaged 29 million viewers globally and generated over 100 million social impressions worldwide. That’s the modern sports equation: the game matters, but the global footprint, the entertainment value, and the monetization opportunities matter more. Amazon’s willingness to air the Bears-Packers game at 8 p.m. ET on Saturday night isn’t about wanting that matchup — it’s about needing exclusive playoff content to justify its streaming bundle’s premium pricing in markets where the NFL has massive international viewership. The game will stream in the UK on Sky Sports. That’s part of the calculus.
Here’s the thing folks: Sports leagues used to build franchises and leagues around domestic television markets and stadium gates. They’ve evolved into global entertainment products, where a Japanese ace pitcher on a Chicago team, a Canadian playoff team in a World Series, or a divisional rivalry on a Saturday night stream matters less for the local narrative and more for the 200-country global audience waiting to click play. The Cubs and Astros’ regular-season series wasn’t just about the NL Central standings — it was a crossover moment where two talent-laden teams intersected with international appeal, ensuring viewership across multiple continents.
With that… Tomorrow’s Bears-Packers game is the harbinger. It’s playoff football in the United States’ most prestigious market, one of the sport’s greatest rivalries, and it’s going to stream exclusively on a platform that’s counting on international subscribers to justify the NFL’s bloated media rights deals. The fourth Sunday window is coming. International venues for regular-season college games are here. And every league from MLB to the NHL will spend the next five years chasing the monetization model that Netflix, Amazon, and global audiences have already made inevitable. Sports won’t remain viable without embracing the global appeal, measurement systems, and monetization strategies that the Christmas games and the World Series have already proven work. The proof is already on your screen.
If you cannot play with them, then root for them!