Netflix Is Bringing Live NFL to Australia This Month
The 49ers face the Rams in a live broadcast from Australia, part of Netflix's expanding live sports push and a rare chance to catch NFL streamed live locally.
Streaming platforms chasing live sports rights isn't new, but Netflix bringing an NFL game to Australian soil, and streaming it live, is a genuinely notable moment for local sports fans.
The Game
Netflix's September slate includes a live NFL broadcast from Australia, with the San Francisco 49ers facing the Los Angeles Rams. It's part of a broader expansion of Netflix's live sports broadcasting, which has moved well beyond documentary coverage into genuine real-time event streaming.
The match was played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in front of a crowd of more than 100,000 fans, kicking off on the morning of 11 September in Australian time (the evening of 10 September in the US). The 49ers came away with a 27-7 win, and the broadcast drew a strong global audience, averaging around 18.5 million viewers in the US alone and peaking above 21 million, with roughly 21.7 million watching worldwide across more than 200 countries.
Who Called the Game
Netflix assembled a heavyweight broadcast team for the occasion. Elle Duncan hosted the studio coverage alongside Hall of Famers Michael Irvin, Nick Foles and Clay Matthews III, while Noah Eagle handled play-by-play with Luke Kuechly making his booth debut as analyst. Tom Pelissero and MJ Acosta-Ruiz worked the sidelines, Terry McAulay covered the rules, and the Jonas Brothers performed at halftime, giving the broadcast a genuine event feel rather than a standard midweek fixture.
Why It Matters Locally
For Australian viewers, NFL access has traditionally meant odd broadcast hours and patchwork streaming rights. A live game staged and streamed on home soil, on a platform most households already have, changes that equation. It's also a signal of where Netflix's sports strategy is headed: fewer standalone events, more of them staged specifically for a streaming audience, following on from its earlier moves into WWE and boxing broadcasts.
What It Costs to Watch
Netflix doesn't gate its live sports behind a premium tier; the Melbourne game streamed to subscribers on any plan. In Australia that means the cheapest way in is the ad-supported Standard with Ads plan, currently priced at $9.99 a month, up from $6.99 when it first launched locally, through to Standard at $20.99 and Premium at $28.99 for four simultaneous 4K streams.
Details: San Francisco 49ers vs Los Angeles Rams, streamed live from the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Netflix.
Also on the Slate
Netflix's Untold documentary series is also releasing new profiles this month, including one on Australian Olympic breakdancer Raygun, adding a local documentary angle to a month that's already unusually sports-heavy for the platform.
