After months of negotiations in which Disney, Amazon and most notably Apple were the leading contenders to acquire NFL Sunday Ticket, Google looks to be the apparent winner.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that negotiations between the NFL and Google for rights to NFL Sunday Ticket have advanced to the point that an agreement could be reached as soon as Wednesday. Under the potential deal, Sunday Ticket would be distributed through YouTube TV and YouTube Primetime Channels as an add-on service.
Apple had long been considered the leading contender to acquire Sunday Ticket, with much of the reporting this year taking on the air of a foregone conclusion. Yet months went by without a deal as talks stalled between the sides over issues such as pricing and exclusivity. This past weekend, Puck News reported that Apple had pulled out of the bidding.
Amazon was also considered a leading contender at one point — particularly after it acquired rights to Thursday Night Football — and Disney was also viewed as a serious possibility earlier in the talks.
Google, by contrast, was not mentioned as a serious possibility until this summer — when the New York Times reported that the company made a bid for the package.
Should Google acquire Sunday Ticket, it would immediately vault the company toward the front of the growing sports rights arms race between streaming companies. Google’s sports rights haul has thus far been fairly limited compared to its rivals, with Amazon’s Thursday Night Football package putting it squarely in the lead and even Apple owning a more formidable array of rights between its MLS and Major League Baseball deals.
Per the Wall Street Journal, Google’s potential deal for Sunday Ticket will not include the minority stake in NFL Media the league has been shopping around.
(News from Wall Street Journal 12.20)
