The Green Bay Packers and Los Angeles Rams will meet in Inglewood, California, on Thanksgiving Eve, and the game will stream exclusively on Netflix. For Wisconsin fans, that means the holiday week matchup that would normally land on local television is heading behind another paywall.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat, responded last month by introducing a bill that would give fans free live broadcasts of their home state's professional sports teams. In a statement, Baldwin said the NFL was asking Wisconsinites to spend their hard-earned money on another streaming service as the cost of nearly everything keeps rising, and added that her For the Fans Act would stop exactly this kind of setup and prevent Wisconsin families from being forced to pay for Netflix just to watch the Packers play this Thanksgiving.
The stakes are not abstract. This is the one inaugural Thanksgiving Eve game, and it arrives as streaming services keep pulling marquee sports deeper into subscription bundles. Netflix holds the rights to five NFL games in 2026, including the league’s first-ever game in Australia, and it will also carry five regular-season games plus the NFL Honors through 2029. The company has already been in the live sports business, airing two games on Christmas Day since 2024.
That is what makes this matchup different from many previous streaming-only broadcasts. Games carried on other streaming platforms, and even on NFL Network, have at times been made available on local television for fans who do not subscribe. Netflix remains the exception, which leaves Packers fans facing a choice between paying up or missing one of the season’s most visible holiday showcases.
The pushback comes as Netflix keeps widening its sports ambitions without chasing a full league package. On Tuesday, co-CEO Ted Sarandos said on FOX Business Network's Mornings with Maria that the company is not bidding on a whole season of sports, including the NFL. But the platform has already used one-off events to build its live lineup, from Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson to the New York Yankees' opening-day shutout of the San Francisco Giants.
The NFL has leaned harder on holiday windows such as Thanksgiving Eve and Christmas Day to turn regular-season games into premium broadcasts, and the Packers-Rams matchup is the latest sign of that strategy. Baldwin’s bill does not change this week’s game, but it puts a target on the model behind it. If the measure advances, the question is no longer whether fans will keep running into isolated pay-per-view moments; it is whether a state can force the league and its streaming partners to keep at least some home-team games free to watch.
