For as long as anyone in television could remember, fall worked the same way.

Football came back.
And when football came back, linear TV got its audience back.

Executives counted on it the way farmers count on rain. Streaming could grow all summer. Phones could steal attention. Kids could disappear into YouTube. None of it mattered once the games kicked off. Sundays fixed everything.

Until they didn’t.

This fall, football returned.
And television didn’t recover.

Streaming didn’t flinch.
It didn’t pause.
It grew.

That was the moment something broke.

The mistake is to think this happened because people stopped caring about sports. They didn’t. Sports still command an absurd share of attention. A tiny fraction of shows. A massive chunk of viewing time. If attention were gravity, sports would be a black hole.

For decades, sports were glued to television. If you wanted the game, you had to go there. That made football the last great defense of the old system. Not because TV was better, but because it was unavoidable.

Then the door opened.

Sports are moving to streaming.

When sports move, attention follows.

Let’s break it down into 3 big questions:
1) Did NFL games help linear TV regain attention?
2) Why is sports moving to streaming a big deal?
3) What happens next?

Did NFL games help linear TV regain attention?

No.  Streaming hit a new high (47.5%) in December.

Streaming minutes in December (Nielsen):
1) 2024 - 51.2B
2) 2025 - 55.1B (↑ 8%)

Share of convergent TV time (Nielsen):
1) Streaming TV - 48%
2) Linear TV - 42%
3) Other - 10%

Trend check:
1) 2021–23 - streaming lost 1% of share from August to December
2) 2024–25 - streaming gained 4% over the same period

Why is sports moving to streaming a big deal?

Sports = 19% of total TV time.

In November:
1) Sports were 3% of shows
2) But 37% of viewing time

News and sports are among the last holdouts in the shift to streaming. As sports move to streaming, expect a more rapid decline in time spent on linear TV.

NFL games available through streaming:
1) 2024 - 54%
2) 2025 - 100%

Streaming hours for NFL games (Entertainment Strategy Guy):
1) 2022 - 379M
2) 2023 - 559M (↑ 32%)
3) 2024 - 773M (↑ 28%)

What happens next?

More sports move to streaming. Attention moves with them. Regular TV declines faster

Why media rights will shift to streaming:
1) Streaming reaches more people
2) Streamers can pay more

Mr. Screens’ Crystal Ball: A big moment is coming. A streaming-only NFL game will beat a similar broadcast. That likely happens before the next NFL media deal in 2029.

The most instructive example is Thursday Night Football.

When the package moved to Amazon, viewership initially fell, which reinforced skepticism about streaming-exclusive sports.

That skepticism missed the trajectory.

Thursday Night Football shows the path: Amazon has grown its viewership 15% over the same window in 2021. The average NFL game has grown by only 9% over that same period.  

Thursday Night Football viewership:
1) 2021 (Fox/NFL) - 13.3M
2) 2022 (Amazon) - 9.6M (↓ 28%)
3) 2023 (Amazon) - 11.9M (↑ 24%)
4) 2024 (Amazon) - 13.2M (↑ 11%)
5) 2025 (Amazon) - 15.3M (↑ 16%)

Historically, Thursday Night Football has been below the NFL's average viewership window. In 2021, the combination of Fox and the NFL Network averaged 78% of the average NFL viewership. Amazon just averaged 82%.

Why this matters: If streaming reaches more fans and pays more money, leagues will follow the audience.

That’s the real endgame.