[209 Life]

The NFL’s “Sunday Ticket” is about to jump to YouTube.
Google and the NFL are reportedly in advanced talks to bring the popular service to YouTube starting next season, according to the Wall Street Journal. An official announcement could come as soon as Wednesday.


DirecTV has held the rights for “Sunday Ticket” since it first launched in 1994. The service has become a critical part of the NFL season for fans across the country. It allows fans to watch nearly any game regardless of market and because of NFL RedZone.
The deal with DirecTV is up after this season. The league has been hunting for a new home for the service for some time. Other than Google, Apple was a favorite though talks between the NFL and Apple reportedly broke down last week.

“I would say it’s in a very critical point for us,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said of the deal earlier this month, via NBC Sports. “We’ve had a lot of interest in this, and we continue to. Our decisions are not based on timelines. They’re based on it being the best outcome with the best party.”

It’s unclear how much the deal between YouTube and the NFL will be worth. DirecTV was paying about $1.5 billion per season. It will mark the second major streaming deal the league has launched in as many years. Amazon Prime Video is now the exclusive home for Thursday night games through the 2033 season. It is paying the league about $1 billion per season.
Disney, ViacomCBS, Fox and Comcast are all reportedly paying more than $2 billion per season for their respective NFL deals, too.

[Optional]

Sounds like a smart deal and also opens up a worldwide market.

[TheMoneyShot]

There was huge steam a few years ago that Xfinity wanted the rights to the deal. Did they just fall off the map?

I just can't believe they won't allow DirecTV/AT&T to match the offer?

I wonder how much YouTube TV would price it for? Do they think people would just shift to YouTube TV because of it? Seems like a huge risk.

[5mike5]

YouTube is already number #1 for live TV by a large margin. And NFL wants it on a streaming only service. Makes sense

[jjgold]

Youtube tv number 1 for streaming market not tv market as as whole

Not even on radar

[5mike5]

No shit jj

[jjgold]

Streaming services tiny
Still technology flawed at times and you need good internet and better to be wired Ethernet for streaming which many refuse to do

[Goat Milk]

YouTube TV is delayed. No hard wire = bust.

NFL Sunday Ticket trash. Gonna go out of business. People only gonna watch redzone in the future. NFL only relevant because of fantasy football.

[pologq]

redzone is fine for me. i hardly watch a whole game as it is. scott hanson becomes my gf for 7 hours every sunday.

[DwightShrute]

redzone is fine for me. i hardly watch a whole game as it is. scott hanson becomes my gf for 7 hours every sunday.

he's got an octo box after all

[Snowball]

yeah i don't think it's a big deal.

Cable is still far superior video

[mjsuax13]

YouTube TV is delayed. No hard wire = bust.

NFL Sunday Ticket trash. Gonna go out of business. People only gonna watch redzone in the future. NFL only relevant because of fantasy football.

Goat spot on as usual. Redzone is all that matters and will continue to matter more with fantasy and degenerates needing 50 TD’s every Sunday to hit their 9 teamers.

[TheMoneyShot]

The other point to this... what does DirecTV do when they lose Sunday Ticket to their subscribers? Kind of odd to see it go after 25+ years. Will customers leave? Will they drop their price? Might be a very odd situation for them.

[Art Vandelay]

Love Redzone - A Sunday staple! Direct TVs problem is you need to buy the whole Sunday Max package just to get Redzone - Cannot buy it separately. Hopefully that changes...

[jjgold]

I am Happy just watching whatever on in my area

[pologq]

he's got an octo box after all

that is true. where else can i get so many boxes for my pleasure?

[pologq]

The other point to this... what does DirecTV do when they lose Sunday Ticket to their subscribers? Kind of odd to see it go after 25+ years. Will customers leave? Will they drop their price? Might be a very odd situation for them.

and for my area a lot lose service in bad weather. i see it in deep trouble.

[GWags]

Streaming services tiny
Still technology flawed at times and you need good internet and better to be wired Ethernet for streaming which many refuse to do

I have T-Mobile internet, no cables or wires so I can place it anywhere in the house close to an outlet.. It converts cell signal into WiFi. Streaming 4 TV's and over 20 things connected to it at once. No lag or buffering. It performs better then Xfinity and cost is much less. So rewarding to cut the cable on everything!

[TheMoneyShot]

Love Redzone - A Sunday staple! Direct TVs problem is you need to buy the whole Sunday Max package just to get Redzone - Cannot buy it separately. Hopefully that changes...

Contact loyalty department.... you can ask them just to turn the Redzone channel on. There's not a package for it... you are correct... but you can request any channel to be added to your current package.

[TheMoneyShot]

and for my area a lot lose service in bad weather. i see it in deep trouble.

I would say twice a season... wet snow gets on the dish.... literally have to wait until the temp outside climbs higher to melt the snow on it's own. I think one day I had no service for about 2 days. It was nuts.

[Slurry Pumper]

I'm dropping Directv like a sack of crap when they don't have it anymore. It's the only reason I have the service. BTW the service is still spot on great with high def picture and even through crappy weather if you have invested in good equipment, but the billing and accounting is so bad, I can't stay with them anymore. I have the redzone on as well, but it just isn't sunday without all 4 of my TVs going and having the games I have in action on the screen at all times so I can monitor the situation. Now the pressure will be on my comcast cable to see if they can handle the band width every Sunday. This may open up the in game betting as well if they promote this and not delay the action coupled with a little innovation to get everyone up to speed literally.

[ThaWoj]

Love Redzone - A Sunday staple! Direct TVs problem is you need to buy the whole Sunday Max package just to get Redzone - Cannot buy it separately. Hopefully that changes...

Its the same for every service. Every single one makes you buy the base package in order to get redzone.

Wonder what all the bars and restaurants gonna do. They're all gonna have to ditch the dish and figure out how to get to youttube tv when a lot of places dont even have internet or wifi.

Might be good for black market streams tho, I would imagine the quality and reliability would be much better for a stream of a stream compared to a stream of cable/satellite

[209 Life]

Youtube TV wins the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket

YouTube (GOOGL) has won the exclusive rights to NFL Sunday Ticket, the National Football League confirmed in a statement on Thursday.
"We're excited to bring NFL Sunday Ticket to YouTube TV and YouTube Primetime Channels and usher in a new era of how fans across the United States watch and follow the NFL," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a press release.


"For a number of years we have been focused on increased digital distribution of our games and this partnership is yet another example of us looking towards the future and building the next generation of NFL fans."
Sunday Ticket, which makes out-of-market games available to fans nationwide, will be available as an add-on package on YouTube TV and standalone a-la-carte on YouTube Primetime Channels starting with the 2023 NFL season. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
A recent report from the New York Times, however, suggested YouTube was willing to pay as much as $2.5 billion to acquire the rights — $1 billion more than former rights holder DirecTV paid for the package.
The report noted the NFL could receive additional payments depending on the number of YouTube subscribers added to the service, along with other performance benchmarks.

YouTube (GOOGL) has won the exclusive rights to NFL Sunday Ticket, the National Football League confirmed in a statement on Thursday.
"We're excited to bring NFL Sunday Ticket to YouTube TV and YouTube Primetime Channels and usher in a new era of how fans across the United States watch and follow the NFL," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a press release.
"For a number of years we have been focused on increased digital distribution of our games and this partnership is yet another example of us looking towards the future and building the next generation of NFL fans."
Sunday Ticket, which makes out-of-market games available to fans nationwide, will be available as an add-on package on YouTube TV and standalone a-la-carte on YouTube Primetime Channels starting with the 2023 NFL season. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
A recent report from the New York Times, however, suggested YouTube was willing to pay as much as $2.5 billion to acquire the rights — $1 billion more than former rights holder DirecTV paid for the package.
The report noted the NFL could receive additional payments depending on the number of YouTube subscribers added to the service, along with other performance benchmarks.
Shares of Alphabet were down about 2% amid a broader market decline following the news.
Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL)
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The sought-after package comes after Puck News reported fellow tech giant Apple (AAPL) backed out of negotiations earlier this week.Apple reportedly wanted more contractual flexibility than the NFL was willing to provide with negotiations falling apart due to existing restrictions attached to the deal.
"It's an extremely expensive package of content," Tim Nollen, analyst at Macquarie Group, told Yahoo Finance Live, noting the Sunday Ticket package was not a profitable service for DirecTV.
"But the sports world is moving towards streaming now," he added, citing the recent debut of ESPN+, which some analysts argue Disney could potentially spin off next year.
YouTube TV, which costs $64.99 a month, has more than five million subscribers and trial users as of July. DirectTV previously boasted 1.5 million to 2 million Sunday Ticket subscribers with each user paying about $300 per season.




According to PwC's biannual U.S. Deals Outlook, demand for live sports, including sports-adjacent industries like sports gambling, will likely drive future M&A activity in the media space.
"There is so much money in sports, and getting live sports onto the streaming platforms is an area that is still not completely tapped," Jon Christian, EVP of digital media supply chain at Qvest, the largest media & entertainment-focused consulting company, previously told Yahoo Finance.
"The question there is: Can they put a pencil to it? Because the price is so high for the content. Are they now going to be able to get the subscribers necessary to be profitable in that business?"
Nollen agreed the "math is difficult" due to the high costs, although it might be a necessary step forward for companies hoping to survive the streaming wars: "Linear subscribers are falling by the wayside. Streaming subscribers are still growing. It's competitive, but they're still growing, and over time more sports could help to attract more users to those platforms."
"How they'll make enough money to justify double or whatever the price increase is? You'd think they'd have to double the price for the streaming services," the analyst suggested.

[Nate rasta]

Great news,YouTube TV is the best. Only bad thing is it's about a minute behind regular cable TV

[Emily_Haines]

Can't believe people pay to watch this garbage.

Haven't watched a Thursday night game all year.

[TheMoneyShot]

Something tells me even though Google has money up the ass... they are going to lose on this deal or not even make close to what they thought they would. NFL doesn't care... victory for them.

[jjgold]

I would never pay for any league packages waste of time and money

Can't believe people pay to watch this garbage.

Haven't watched a Thursday night game all year.