Already the king of the streaming business, Netflix is reaching even greater heights—thanks in no small part to a booming advertising business.

The company said it boosted advertising commitments from its recent up-front negotiations by more than 150% compared to the 2023 upfront, with its new three-year deal for Christmas Day NFL games and 10-year agreement for live rights to WWE’s Raw both playing significant roles.

The disclosure, though not including any information about total sales volume or pricing, helped push Netflix stock to a record close of $698.54 per share Tuesday. The stock then retreated slightly in Wednesday trading, falling 0.2%. But Netflix shares have still grown more than 48% this year, and the new company high surpassed a prior mark set in November 2021.

“Over the last few months, we’ve hit great milestones for our ads business, including closing another successful upfront market, building and implementing an expanded programmatic suite, enhancing our global measurement capabilities, and securing impactful global ad campaigns,” said Amy Reinhard, Netflix president of advertising. 

A Market Force

Even before this latest news from Netflix, the company was operating from a position of unrivaled strength. Netflix reported 277.7 million subscribers as of the end of the second quarter, a figure far above any other market challenger. 

Within that top-line number, ads continue to take on much more importance for Netflix. In geographic markets where the platform is running ads—including the U.S.—those tiers of the service now account for 45% of all sign-ups, just 18 months after beginning that part of the business.

“To have the kind of primary revenue impact across a business that has been primarily subscription[-based] for a long time, that just takes some time. We’re scaling well through reach, through engagement, through growing inventory,” said Netflix CFO Spencer Neumann last month in an earnings call with analysts. 

“That represents an opportunity over a multiyear trajectory to have a big and increasing revenue and profit impact on the business. … We feel really good about our position, our ability to sustain healthy revenue and profit growth. Ads [are] kind of one more tool in our tool chest here.”

While building hype for the NFL season, which begins in two weeks, the league is also taking precautions against sports betting among its players, especially as the NBA and MLB have faced significant controversies this year.

The NFL will have investigators on-site during game days to scout for “suspicious activity,” according to ESPN. What constitutes suspicious activity is unclear, though SVP of NFL security Cathy Lanier told ESPN that the investigators, which consist of retired FBI agents or executive-level police officers, are searching for behavior that could be an “anomaly.”

The NFL’s security team also monitors betting markets in search of suspicious activity, such as large swings in the odds of player props. This is what triggered the NBA incident involving the Raptors’ Jontay Porter after DraftKings Sportsbook reported that his player props were the day’s top moneymaker on two separate occasions.

A similar report was received by MLB in the case that turned into a lifetime ban for San Diego Padres infielder Tucipita Marcano.

NFL’s Betting Guidelines

The NFL already has the strictest rules for sports betting among the major sports leagues. Players are banned from betting on any games or related events, such as the draft or combine. Players are allowed to bet only on other sports, and staff members cannot bet on sports at all.

The NFL last suspended players for sports betting in June 2023, with three receiving one-year bans. The most high-profile suspension the league handed out since the 2018 Supreme Court rule change on sports betting was in March 2022, when receiver Calvin Ridley (above) was given a one-year suspension for betting on NFL games, including those of the Falcons—the team he played for at the time—while he was away from the team for personal reasons.

But the country’s richest sports league has yet to institute a lifetime ban due to sports betting, and it’s clearly trying to do all it can to stop it from happening even if most think it’s inevitable.

“It’s only a matter of time,” one league executive told Front Office Sports last month.

The Flip Side

Players have also faced pressure because they are the ones fans’ money is riding on.

Commanders running back Austin Ekeler told Bloomberg that he sees how sports betting, or even fantasy football, can help enhance fan engagement and knowledge of the sport, but on the flip side, he also feels like it can turn “athletes into widgets.”

In the NBA, stars like Tyrese Haliburton have already complained about how dehumanizing it is to be bet on. “To half the world, I’m just helping them make money on DraftKings or whatever. I’m a prop,” Haliburton said in March.

The NCAA is also pushing to stop prop betting at the collegiate level, with president Charlie Baker saying that college athletes have faced “harassment” on top of how it poses a threat to the “integrity of competition.”