Many of the NFL’s carriage agreements were up for renewal in the last few years. CBS, FOX, NBC, ABC, ESPN, Amazon Prime Video, and DIRECTV have already received rights from it. The NFL Sunday Ticket bundle is now the last one available. DIRECTV will no longer carry it after the upcoming season.
We knew that Apple and Amazon were negotiating to buy the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket as of last week. Apple is the market leader. However, a report from the New York Times over the weekend indicated that Google has interest and has joined the conversation. This suggests that the NFL Sunday Ticket may eventually be made available on YouTube or, more likely, combined with YouTube TV.
The three biggest and most successful corporations are attempting to acquire Sunday Ticket, which is wonderful news for the NFL. Accordingly, the NFL can demand even more money for this package.
Advertisement APPLE HAS SLOWLY ENTERED THE SPORTS FOR TV MARKET Following the announcement of Friday Night Baseball for TV a few months ago, Apple later agreed to a 10-year contract with Major League Soccer. Being one of the smaller US leagues, soccer, it’s obviously not a big problem for Apple. However, if they are successful in acquiring the NFL Sunday Ticket rights, TV may become a serious rival to live sports streaming services.
It seems logical that Google would want to participate in the NFL Sunday Ticket when it comes to technology. They need some sports to improve the value of their service after losing the Bally Sports regional sports networks a few years ago (and those aren’t coming back). The NFL Sunday Ticket might be able to accomplish that. The main concern here, though, is whether it would be a part of the $65/month charge or an add-on.
