Tech Giants Compete to Take Over NFL Sunday Ticket From DirecTV
Apple, Amazon and Google are vying for the out-of-market football package as DirecTV's long-running hold on it nears its end.
By Amy Swan ·
Three of the world's biggest technology companies are locked in a contest over a prized piece of sports programming. Apple, Amazon and Google are each pushing to become the new home of NFL Sunday Ticket, the subscription package that lets fans watch every Sunday game live.
John Ourand, a staff writer at the Sports Business Journal, explained the stakes in an interview with NPR's Ayesha Rascoe, broadcast around Sept. 4, 2022. He described Sunday Ticket as an out-of-market package. A Minnesota Vikings fan living in Tampa, Florida, for example, could pay roughly $300 to $400 and be guaranteed access to every Vikings game, whatever the local broadcast channel is showing.
DirecTV has held the package since the satellite provider launched in 1994. According to Ourand, both the NFL and DirecTV executives credit Sunday Ticket with helping the company grow into a major satellite distributor by drawing young, affluent sports fans who wanted all of the content. That relationship is now ending. DirecTV has said it does not want to pay what the league is asking, which Ourand put at about $2 billion a year.
The package differs from the rights held by broadcasters such as Fox and CBS, which show games locally and cannot air every contest. Ourand said a Giants fan living in Atlanta, for instance, would see almost none of that team's games on those networks, while Sunday Ticket covers every game.
Ourand said the appeal lies partly in the audience. Sunday Night Football has been the most popular prime-time show for more than a decade, which he described as a television record of 11 consecutive years. Sunday Ticket, he said, is a high-priced product whose subscribers are willing to spend heavily. Even under Apple or Amazon, he expected the price to stay around $300 to $400.
He said DirecTV had an exit clause in its contract and tried to leave two years earlier because it had stopped making money on the package. The NFL is now pitching the tech companies on the idea that it can help them build video services, as it did for DirecTV in 1994. A company such as Apple TV, which is expanding into sports, might not profit from Sunday Ticket by itself, Ourand said, but could gain subscribers who then stay for other entertainment and sports programming. Amazon, he added, could also sell more ads and, as he put it, more paper towels.
The bidding reflects a wider trend. Ourand noted that Apple TV+ recently struck a deal to carry every Major League Soccer game, and that Amazon Prime has exclusive rights to Thursday Night Football games with the NFL. In his words, the companies have been "slowly encroaching onto the market."
Ourand said the tech companies believe sports viewing will eventually resemble the way people consume Netflix today.
Source: LAist
