American football’s top-tier NFL has extended its rights deal with the TelevisaUnivision media group in Mexico through 2026, putting an agreement covering that key market in place at the eleventh hour.
TelevisaUnivision will continue to air regular-season NFL games, playoff fixtures and the iconic post-season Super Bowl finale. The deal continues TelevisaUnivision's history as an NFL broadcaster of over 50 years.
Before this announcement, no formal agreement for the 2024 NFL season (which began last Thursday) was in place in Mexico, which forms a key market for the NFL and has a favorable timezone as a neighbor of the US.
This action will go to air across free-to-air channels, and through the ViX streaming service.
Meanwhile, the TUDN sports division of TelevisaUnivision will continue to produce the NFL Blitz show on Sundays throughout the season.
Last season, NFL action was also shown in Mexico by Fox Sports, Sky, and ESPN.
To date, the NFL has staged five regular-season games in Mexico.
Elsewhere in terms of NFL rights, TV 2, the Danish network owned by the country’s government, has signed a new multi-year deal covering that property.
This comes after the network chose to exit its previous rights deal for the league (announced in 2022 and originally intended to run through the 2024 campaign) after the end of the 2023 season earlier this year. Now, a new tie-up, which has been described as a “slightly different kind of agreement,” has been unveiled.
This new deal was also unveiled at the last minute.
Frederik Lauesen, sports director at TV 2, has said: “I am really happy that we have reached a good agreement with the NFL … We will do everything to spread interest in it even more in Denmark over the coming seasons.”
Lauesen also commented that “sometimes you have to break up to discover that you cannot do without each other. We have been able to sense a need from our users and viewers who really care about this fantastic sport. That's why we've been able to sit down and figure out how to make a slightly different kind of agreement that fits the needs we have here at TV 2.”
The specifics of this deal will see two matches per game week covered live on the TV 2 platforms, either through the TV 2 Sport and TV 2 Sport X channels or through the TV 2 Play streaming service.
That latter platform will also make the NFL Redzone channel - which covers the best action from each Sunday afternoon NFL game (Sunday evenings for a Danish audience) - available.
Coverage on TV 2 got underway yesterday (September 8), as the Minnesota Vikings comprehensively beat the New York Giants 28-6. That game was viewable on the linear TV 2 channels, while TV 2 Play then showed the game between the Cleveland Browns and Dallas Cowboys.
Before TV 2 stepped in, NFL live action had been available in Denmark through the Viaplay broadcaster, in a deal (across Scandinavia) that covered the 2018-21 cycle.
Elsewhere in that region, the NFL is now being covered this season by C More in Sweden and Finland.
