The NFL’s much-discussed Sunday Ticket package is in the news of late, with one report having Amazon as the lead contender to acquire the out-of-market games that are up for bid, while another touts Disney’s ESPN empire as interested.
All fair, but it’s still early in the process, and sources say the NFL wants — or perhaps, better termed, hopes — Apple gets the out-of-market package. And that package could look a lot different structurally than the one DirecTV has shopped since its inception in 1994, charging a basic rate for all the games. Under consideration is adding choices like allowing fans to buy just one team’s out-of-market games, or perhaps even stand-alone games, sources said.
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“Everything is on the table,” one source said, but nothing is set in stone.
DirecTV is paying on average $1.5 billion a year in a deal that stretches through the end of next season. All indications are the satellite carrier’s parent AT&T has no interest in renewing, especially at the $2 billion-plus per year fee the NFL is reportedly seeking. AT&T has struggled financially, and talks with the NFL in recent years have proved unproductive.
So, why would the NFL prefer a bite of Apple (sorry, couldn’t resist)? The league already has a deep partnership with Amazon, which provides stats through Amazon Web Services, and will pay $1 billion annually starting next year for exclusive rights to Thursday Night Football after carrying the midweek games nonexclusively since 2017. And the league has long been intertwined with ESPN, which surely could juice its streaming service, ESPN+, with Sunday Ticket.
Apple, which did not reply for comment, is investing heavily in Apple TV+, home to hits like “Ted Lasso” but not live sports. However, unlike Amazon, which is a retailer, and ESPN, a content company, the NFL with Apple would for the first time be doing business on a large scale with the preeminent technology giant. It would marry the NFL with the company that sells arguably the globe’s most critical consumer product, the iPhone.
“Apple is different from Amazon in the sense that they are still a technological device company,” said Patrick Crakes, a TV consultant and formerly an executive with Fox Sports. “So that diversifies the league — or the league’s always believed in an inclusive diversified kind of network mix. Apple is a different company than Amazon, even though people talk about them in the same breath. They’re very different. So I can see how the league might view that as a great diversification to their portfolio for the next decade.”
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There are also reports the Sunday Ticket deal could be paired with an equity position in NFL Media, so aligning with a company like Apple could be viewed favorably by the NFL.
The NFL declined to comment. A source close to the league had this to offer: “(T)here is a ton of interest in this product from a lot of companies you could probably guess (yes, Apple is one) and probably several others that might not be top of mind. … We will see how it ultimately shakes out, but I wouldn’t say anything is imminent here.”
And that’s about right, with the earliest the league might agree to a deal months away.
“You are going to hear a lot of different names get tossed around,” Crakes said. “All of this stuff can be true. ESPN can be involved. Amazon can be out front. And Apple can be preferred. And none of it means anything, right? That’s the problem with it.”
Crakes is not as bullish on the Sunday Ticket package as some. Off the bat, the buyer has to treat the deal as a loss leader (meaning it loses money but serves a strategic purpose). DirecTV charges about $300 a year for the games ($400 for those who also want add-ons like RedZone), though it often packages Sunday Ticket as free in other offerings and discounts. For example, it is currently offered for free to subscribers of its Choice tier. There are roughly 2 million Sunday Ticket subscribers, though Crakes estimates only half pay the full fare. That brings in well less than half of the rights fee.
For DirecTV, it’s a marketing expense, so Sunday Ticket almost surely would have to be treated as such by the interested companies, whether Apple, Amazon or others. Apple charges $4.99 a month for its TV stream, or $59.88 a year, so it would need to sell over 33 million subscriptions to make a $2 billion fee work — unless it views Sunday Ticket largely as akin to an advertising expense.
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Could others be interested? Network partners CBS and NBC have their own streaming services, the two Ps: Paramount+ and Peacock, respectively. And Netflix, which has long said it’s not interested in sports rights, just put its nose under the proverbial tent, saying it might bid on Formula 1 rights.
And about Netflix, former NFL Media CEO Steve Bornstein recently said at a Sportico conference that it’s a question of when and not if Netflix gets into live sports. This argument looks at sports as a way for streamers to offer programming that distinguishes them from the many movies and TV shows that litter these services.
Back to Crakes’ worries over the Sunday Ticket value. There is the loss leader issue, but he also questions whether Sunday Ticket is really a must-have for most fans.
“So, first of all, I’ve got four national windows, right?” he said. “So on broadcast television, most of the games are on fully distributed pay TV. And so this product is for Sunday, daytime, it’s for games. It’s not going to be for the top game right here in the market. It’s not the top national game, right? That national game ends up in the master window somehow. So this is for true fans and for people who want to either have an ecosystem where they can flip around, but there’s RedZone for that.”
Many have been wrong before when arguing the NFL would suffer for creating more windows and packages. (Looking at you, Mark Cuban.) And the first two weeks of the NFL season further solidifies the incredible hold football has on American media. According to Fox Sports head of strategy Michael Mulvihill, since the season started, the 14 most-watched shows on TV are either NFL games or pregame shows. So everything Crakes argues might be right, but chances are the NFL will still roll in the Sunday Ticket cash, whether from Apple or some other company eager to hitch its train to the football popularity steamroller.
(Photo: Geoff Burke / USA Today)