Although NFL commissioner Roger Goodell initially said he expected to strike a deal for the prestigious Sunday Ticket package by the fall of this year, latest reports indicate talks have stalled. Apple TV is known to be very interested in acquiring the rights to Sunday Ticket, joining its existing streaming sports lineup, including Major League Soccer and MLB Friday Night Baseball.
The latest update on the state of affairs comes from The New York Times. The newspaper says negotiations are likely to drag on into next year. Despite some earlier reports to the contrary, Apple has yet to finalize a deal and Google (YouTube) has emerged as a serious competitor.
A possible Sunday Ticket contract should be worth between 2.5 and 3 billion dollars per year. The NFL’s current partner on the package, DIRECTV, is not renewing its license due to high costs. Realistically, the price means only a tech giant or big streamer can afford it.
While Apple is reportedly still in contention, The New York Times singles out Google as an alternate favorite to clinch the deal. Google is looking to use Sunday Ticket to bolster its YouTube TV offering, its Internet-based cable channel service.
The report says one of the reasons the talks have taken so long is the NFL’s attempt to bundle other assets like NFL Network and NFL RedZone into a sale. Another apparent reason is that only a handful of NFL executives are involved in media negotiations, and they were recently busy closing a deal for its NFL Films division. Now that the film’s deal is done, attention is once again returning to Sunday Ticket.
A report by The Athletic over the weekend noted that Apple and the NFL were debating semantics like the inclusion of international selling rights and the nature of geo-blackout restrictions in the proposed contract for Sunday tickets. . However, the NFL is not (or cannot due to existing contracts with broadcast/cable partners) willing to concede on these points. The Athetlic’s implication was that Apple’s passion for the deal may have waned.
In a sign of the positive relationship between Apple and the NFL, Apple Music was recently announced as a Super Bowl halftime sponsor.
FTC: We use revenue-generating automatic affiliate links. After.
Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news:
