The NFL\u2019s first-ever regular-season game in Australia is expected to have a familiar voice calling it for Netflix.<\/p>\n
According to Front Office Sports<\/a>, Noah Eagle will be the play-by-play voice for the streamer\u2019s broadcast of the 49ers-Rams game in Melbourne on Sept. 10, the NFL\u2019s first regular-season game in Australia. As FOS\u2019s Ryan Glasspiegel notes, no color commentator has been named yet, and NBC will produce the broadcast, taking over from CBS, which handled Netflix\u2019s NFL games in past seasons.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t the first time the league\u2019s Week 1 international opener has gone to a streamer looking to make a statement with its NFL coverage. Last year, the league\u2019s Week 1 international opener went to YouTube for its first-ever NFL broadcast, with Rich Eisen and Kurt Warner calling the Chiefs-Chargers game from Brazil. That assignment turned out to be one of Eisen\u2019s last<\/a> as a play-by-play announcer. ESPN took Eisen off NFL Network\u2019s international slate after acquiring the network, opting for Dave Pasch instead<\/a>. Eisen, who\u2019d called NFL Network\u2019s overseas games since 2018 and admitted he was only just starting to feel comfortable in the booth, will stay on as host of NFL GameDay Morning but is done with play-by-play. This year, that same marquee Week 1 opener slot belongs to Netflix, and the streamer is trusting it to a 29-year-old rather than a longtime NFL Network fixture.<\/p>\n Eagle\u2019s been NBC\u2019s lead voice for Big Ten Saturday Night<\/a> since February 2023, and has since added the French Open, Team USA basketball at the 2024 Paris Olympics<\/a>, and NFL games on Peacock to his workload, earning a 2025 Sports Emmy nomination<\/a> in the same Personality\/Play-by-Play category as his father, Ian. That same year, NBC also handed him a share of its returning NBA package<\/a>, calling a game on the first night of Sunday Night Basketball, anchoring segments during Super Bowl coverage, and serving as the voice of NBA All-Star weekend before becoming the lead announcer<\/a> for Peacock\u2019s experimental \u201cOn the Bench\u201d broadcasts.<\/p>\n He\u2019s also already worked directly for Netflix. He and Ian became the first father-son duo<\/a> to call games on the same network during Netflix\u2019s first NFL Christmas doubleheader in 2024, with Ian on Steelers-Chiefs and Noah on Ravens-Texans alongside Greg Olsen, a broadcast Awful Announcing called \u201cunobtrusive yet effective<\/a>\u201d despite a lopsided 31-2 final. He returned for a second Christmas doubleheader the following year, again splitting the booth with his father.<\/p>\n None of that compares to what Netflix is handing him in Australia. It\u2019s one of the marquee games of the NFL\u2019s opening week, staged at the 100,000-seat Melbourne Cricket Ground as part of a record nine international games this year, and it airs the night after NBC\u2019s own Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl rematch<\/a> kicks off the actual season opener. The game is also part of a broader expansion of Netflix\u2019s football footprint. It picked up the Australia broadcast as one of four games the NFL redistributed after ESPN\u2019s acquisition of NFL Network, and paired with a new Thanksgiving Eve game<\/a> between the Packers and Rams, two Christmas games, and a Saturday matchup to close Week 18, that brings Netflix to five NFL broadcasts in 2026<\/a>, up from two in each of its first two seasons in the sport. The streamer\u2019s NFL deal runs through 2029, and while it hasn\u2019t signaled any interest in bidding on a full weekly package, the growing list of marquee windows suggests it\u2019s happy to keep collecting them.<\/p>\n