YouTube in Advanced Talks for N.F.L. Sunday Ticket

A deal between YouTube and the N.F.L. could be reached as soon as this week, the people said.

YouTube did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for the league declined to comment.

YouTube’s pursuit of Sunday Ticket is the latest sign that live sports, the glue that holds the traditional cable bundle together, is shifting toward video-streaming companies. Amazon reached an agreement last year to stream the N.F.L.’s Thursday night football games on its Prime video service for $1 billion annually, and Apple has struck deals to stream both Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer. The Apple TV+ streaming service has already struck rich deals to land major stars for its films and TV shows, including “The Morning Show” and “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

As the negotiations stretched on, Apple became skeptical that the Sunday Ticket package was worth what the N.F.L. was seeking and ended serious conversations about a potential deal, a person familiar with the matter said. Apple honed its focus on completing a deal to sponsor the halftime show for the 2023 Super Bowl, which it believes will raise the profile of its Apple Music service.

DirecTV’s rights for Sunday Ticket are set to expire at the end of the 2022 regular season. There has been years of speculation about who might land the coveted rights.

Within the last year, it became clear that the league had set its sights on selling the Sunday Ticket rights to a streaming service. In July, the N.F.L. commissioner, Roger Goodell, said in an interview with CNBC that a streaming buyer would be “best for consumers.” Apple, YouTube and Amazon soon emerged as leading contenders, tech giants with bankrolls and audiences big enough to entice the N.F.L.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/20/business/nfl-sunday-ticket-youtube.html