The future of NFL Sunday Ticket is still a question mark, despite the NFL wrapping up all of their other TV deals earlier this year. Plenty of possible suitors have been mentioned in recent months (and hell, years), but none have been rumored as a front-runner – until now.
On Friday, CNBC reported that the front-runner appears to be Amazon, who acquired exclusivity for the NFL’s Thursday Night Football package as part of the league’s new round of TV deals.
DirecTV owns the Sunday Ticket rights through the end of next season, but given the company’s sale and general upheaval, a possible renewal seems slim. Per CNBC, the rights fee for Sunday Ticket is expected to land somewhere in the range of $2 billion to $2.5 billion per season. DirecTV is currently paying $1.5 billion per season as part of an eight-year deal.
Let’s take a brief look back at the mooted suitors for Sunday Ticket over the last two (!) years. ESPN has consistently been rumored as a possible destination. DAZN, back when they cared about non-combat sports in the US market, discussed their interest. Apple, consistently mentioned as a possible bidder for live sports, was rumored to be interested earlier this summer. Peacock, a potentially logical spot, is not in the running, per CNBC.
Amazon makes a ton of sense, given their existing relationship with the NFL. If a deal gets done, it’ll be interesting to see how Amazon works Sunday Ticket into Prime Video. I highly doubt it’ll just be included as part of a Prime subscription, as TNF is. More than likely, users will need to be another subscription fee, as we see with the various add-on subscriptions offered in Prime Video (MLB.tv, Showtime, etc).
[CNBC]
