The NFL could have yet another new broadcast partner next season, with both Google and Warner Bros. Discovery said to be interested in rights to the league’s International Series game from Brazil.
Google-owned YouTube TV, Amazon and Warner Bros. Discovery are all said to be interested in acquiring rights to the Week 1 NFL International Series game from Brazil, according to Ben Fischer and Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal.
While Amazon is three seasons into its run as the exclusive home of Thursday Night Football, YouTube TV has never produced an NFL broadcast and WBD has not done so since TNT held part of the Sunday night package in the 1990s.
Per the report, YouTube TV is believed by some to be a favorite to acquire the game. The streaming MVPD is the exclusive home of the NFL Sunday Ticket out-of-market package, which includes Sunday afternoon games produced by CBS and FOX, but rarely produces live sporting events of its own.
As for WBD, even one NFL game would qualify as a prized acquisition for a company that after this season will no longer own rights to its primary property, the NBA. It would be a deal in keeping with the company’s recent strategy of acquiring bits and pieces of many different properties, including a handful of College Football Playoff games and parts of the Big East, Big 12 and Mountain West.
Last season, the Brazil game aired exclusively on Peacock and averaged 14.7 million viewers (including local over-the-air simulcasts in the home markets).
It is not clear whether there are any other bidders for the game, which could be part of a package that includes one other contest.
Should either YouTube TV or WBD acquire rights to the game, it would extend the number of NFL broadcasters next season to nine, with the winner joining the “Big Four” broadcast networks (CBS, NBC, FOX and ABC), ESPN, and four streaming services — Amazon, Netflix, Peacock and ESPN+.
