The NFL is indeed an investor in Paramount by way of its relationship with Skydance, Paramount Skydance chairman/CEO David Ellison said Friday.
Discussing the company’s relationship with the NFL ahead of the league’s potential opt-out of its media rights deals, Ellison told CNBC Friday that the league “is actually now an investor in Paramount through our joint venture with Skydance Sports,” confirming what The Wall Street Journal reported last week.
It should be noted that Ellison described the NFL as having a stake in Paramount, rather than CBS specifically, which is what WSJ reported.
It is not clear how much equity the NFL now has in Paramount, one of its five core broadcast partners. The league will take a ten percent stake with ESPN if the proposed deal between the parties passes regulatory review, but that will take the better part of the next year. Until that point, Paramount will be the only rights partner in which the league has a vested interest.
Ellison said that while the NFL still has an opt out in its rights deal, Paramount is not concerned. “We’re both committed to being partners for the foreseeable future … We believe we’re going to be in business with the NFL for the foreseeable future.”
Beyond the broader opt-out in the NFL media rights deals, which allow the league to exit its current contracts in 2029 (or 2030 in the case of ESPN), the league can also opt out of its Paramount deal due to the company’s change in ownership. Even so, the league is not expected to exercise the change in ownership clause of its contract.
CBS has held NFL rights for longer than any other company, airing games in all-but-four years from 1956 to present day. The company currently pays $2.1 billion/year for the rights, behind Disney (ESPN) at $2.7 billion and Fox at $2.25 billion, but ahead of Comcast (NBC) at $2.0 billion.
Even after the merger, which closed Thursday after months of regulatory pressure and internal dysfunction, Paramount Skydance is still a fraction of the size of the other NFL rights holders — which also include corporate giants Amazon and Netflix.
