THB Headline: "YouTube Paying Roughly $2 Billion a Year for NFL Sunday Ticket"
The headline is from the Wall St Journal reporters Joe Flint and Miles Kruppa, who broke the story when it finally went from being gossip to news.
The story matters to more than football fans because it stands as another example of the complication of interests in how “Legacy” and Streaming moves forward.
Sports is seen as the one sure bet in “Legacy” television right now. As a result, the NFL has been able to pile up massive growth in what it charges for rights. The average annual rights under their current deals are:
CBS - $2 billion
FOX - $2 billion
NBC Sunday Night Football - $2 billion
ESPN/Disney Monday Night Football - $2.7 billion
Amazon Thursday Night Football - $1 billion
Sunday Ticket is, simply, a package for fans to access the CBS and Fox games, with their national commercials, that does not include the playoffs or any other oddball national games that don’t compete with other games at the same time (like Thanksgiving or international games).
In recent years, the NFL has expande…
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