The National Football League’s current deal with DirecTV for the ‘Sunday Ticket’ is set to expire after the 2022 season and by the way it’s looking, two media giants are the early frontrunners to get the exclusive rights to the package.
According to John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal, Amazon and Apple have emerged as the “frontrunners” to get the NFL broadcast package for their respective streaming services.
But they are also facing competition from Disney, who would like to make NFL Sunday Ticket a part of their ESPN+ package.
This doesn’t necessarily mean the decades-long relationship between the NFL and DirecTV would be over. The company is reportedly negotiating a deal for a commercial license that would let the satellite television company sell the Sunday Ticket package to restaurants and bars.
DirecTV currently pays an average of $1.5 billion a year for the exclusive rights to Sunday Ticket. But SBJ sources say that the next contract will net the NFL upwards of $2 billion per year.
Between Amazon and Apple, it would look like Amazon is more prepared to take control of the NFL Sunday Ticket. They’ve been ramping up their NFL content over the past few years and are making bigger and bigger moves into the live broadcast space.
Whoever does end up getting the Sunday Ticket will have to pony up a lot of change.
