This originally appeared in Monday’s edition of The A Block, Awful Announcing’s daily newsletter with the latest sports media news, commentary, and analysis. Sign up here and be the first to know everything you need to know about the sports media world.
Sometimes, when you sit down to watch the NFL, it can feel like too much. For just one of 17 games, the excesses of one broadcast — the shiny studios, the music, the graphics, the outdoor B-roll footage — are almost overwhelming.
Does Terry Bradshaw really need to be in that cavernous set? Who asked for so many camera angles? Why is there a new scorebug every time I look up?
Then, if you’re like me, you watched YouTube’s maiden voyage airing NFL games and remembered.
With a big, exclusive window in the opening week of the season in Sao Paulo, everything was looking up for YouTube. Friday’s AFC West battle royale provided YouTube with an intense matchup against America’s (new) team, the Kansas City Chiefs. And despite some challenges negotiating with traditional networks, YouTube stocked the broadcast with legit talent and hired NBC to produce the game.
Such a Chiefs thing that this sequence turned into points.
Rich Eisen and Kurt Warner with the call for YouTube. #NFL pic.twitter.com/sENzBu5RHr
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 6, 2025
A game on YouTube was exciting, regardless of the spice that Google added to the broadcast. YouTube means free, for everyone, and a unified global experience—an NFL game on the platform where people already spend the most time watching content.
Watching the broadcast, it felt as if the streamer misunderstood its own appeal to the league and its fans. They were there for the football, not the YouTube. Nevertheless, YouTube removed almost all production value from its stateside studio, where Derek Carr and Tyrann Mathieu still managed to impress. In Brazil, YouTube brought on the entertaining Kay Adams and Cam Newton, who catered far too much to the lowest common denominator in the audience. Rather than reported features or sit-downs, YouTube produced segments with creators to fill in the gaps.
Some good ideas were tucked into the underwhelming broadcast. Tech reviewer Marques Brownlee breaking down the play-calling hardware was ideally suited for YouTube: informative, niche, and personal. Other segments, with lifestyle creators or Fantasy Life analyst Peter Overzet, contributed to the feeling that it was a minor-league affair.
Merrianne gets Super Bowl tickets from MrBeast.
And Chris is launched out of a cannon. #NFL https://t.co/o0eaiM50LZ pic.twitter.com/9DWR0SdubE
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 6, 2025
You don’t wear sweatpants to the job fair. YouTube seemed to want to integrate itself into the NFL viewing experience rather than simply posting a well-produced NFL game that happened to be on YouTube. There is room for both, but the most important thing is that the game looks great and feels big.
YouTube did not meet that mark. With too much short-form shoulder programming, low production value, and green talent, the game felt smaller. Particularly when you factor in that part of YouTube’s recent growth has come as a result of more podcasters, reporters, and essayists turning their channels into bona fide production teams, it makes even less sense why YouTube would go small with its first NFL game.
I am one of many who believe YouTube could be the future home of a bigger NFL package. There is undoubtedly room to innovate and modernize the NFL broadcast. To that end, creators are sure to be part of any eventual weekly NFL broadcast on YouTube. The vibe will be more casual and younger.
Elements of YouTube’s first try with the NFL can work. But if it wants to become a fixture of how Americans watch the biggest sport in the country, the streamer needs to reach the high bar established by decades of big, brash, expensive football on TV.
Sign up for The A Block, Awful Announcing’s daily newsletter, here.