Pride of Detroit
The NFL spans several different TV and streaming networks. Which is your favorite?
This past Sunday, fans of the Detroit Tigers got to witness a dominant performance from former Cy Young award winning pitcher Tarik Skubal—but only if you had the Roku Channel.
Yes, a regular season Major League Baseball game was broadcast on the sports channel available exclusively on a smart television. As Jeremy Reisman can attest, it is a bizarre broadcasting decision:
The Detroit Lions and the NFL have not ventured down that rabbit hole (yet), but the NFL broadcasting landscape has changed without question in recent years. The Lions will experience the whole spectrum of networks in 2025. The Sunday staple networks—FOX and CBS—are obviously included, as are NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” and ESPN’s “Monday Night Football.” Thursday football, meanwhile, has been airing on Prime Video since 2017, though local stations have also been carrying these games.
New to the Lions in 2025 will be a Netflix game on Christmas Day. The streaming service, known best for “Stranger Things” and removing television shows that I want to watch, has been dipping its toe in the live sports pool, covering their first NFL game last year as well as numerous WWE events. Back-to-back NFL games could be a mountainous server load for the platform, and given some of their previous hiccups with live events, we could be in for some buffering.
Watching NFL football has become a sport in and of itself given the channel hopping needed to watch every game. If you want to tune into every Lions game this season, you will need at least a cable package and one streaming service, with a bit of luck that the game is on your local broadcast. If you are instead a cable cutter, you will suddenly need a handful of streaming subscriptions to watch your favorite team. The NFL is expanding annually, yet simultaneously distancing itself from fans at the same time.
With so many ways to watch the NFL, which is your favorite?
Today’s Question of the Day is:
My answer: CBS.
Some networks like NBC or ESPN have one crew given their once-per-week status, meaning you will likely get the same product week in, week out. Though I think these two networks have good to great production value, their commentator crews leave something to be desired for me. ESPN’s Joe Buck has grown into one of my favorite play-by-play commentators, but the broadcast is weighed down by Troy Aikman. NBC, meanwhile, used to be my favorite, but I have soured on Mike Tirico and Cris Collingsworth recently—put an asterisk next to their names.
Al Michaels is a legend of the broadcasting world, but I think his best days are behind. Additionally, he is burdened with “Thursday Night Football” that is usually in the running for worst game of the week.
The biggest networks in the game are FOX and CBS, and both have their pros and cons....
