Here's How Much Seinfeld, Larry David Made on Netflix Deal

Seinfeld is heading to Netflix, and its creators are reportedly a lot richer thanks to the streaming deal. Sources tell the Wrap that Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David will each make nine figures, with one saying they'll get $100 million to $125 million each and another saying the amounts are even higher than that. That's just part of the reported $500 million (or more) Netflix is said to have paid for streaming rights, and ScreenRant explains a few contributing factors that may explain why it paid so much: First, of course, it needed a series to replace Friends and The Office, both of which it's losing—and second, it has global streaming rights, meaning it can stream the series around the world, not just in the US. WarnerMedia and NBCUniversal, conversely, only have US streaming rights for Friends and The Office

Hulu currently holds the US streaming rights for Seinfeld, and Amazon holds most of the foreign streaming rights, but those deals are up in 2021, when the series heads to Netflix. As Vox explains, Netflix's huge subscriber base allowed it to outbid many others to land the show: "One thing that’s probably true: Even though Netflix has outbid its competitors for Seinfeld, the show will almost certainly be cheaper for Netflix on a per-subscriber basis than it would be for competitors, since it can spread those programming costs against that huge subscriber base." However, as Gizmodo notes, Seinfeld watchers may not appreciate the switch from Hulu to Netflix: "Currently, the Seinfeld page on Hulu serves users a feature on the landing page to help navigate the show’s almost 200 episodes. Nearly a dozen series-specific tags help filter Seinfeld episodes by popularity, breakup-related episodes, and episodes with a crime theme, among others. There’s even a Beginner’s Guide." No such feature, at least currently, exists on Netflix. (More Netflix stories.)