The NFL on Thursday announced that Google’s YouTube TV has secured the rights to its out-of-market Sunday Ticket package, as the two sides agreed on a seven-year deal said to be worth around $2 billion per season.
Beginning next fall, Sunday Ticket will be available as an add-on package with the YouTube TV skinny bundle (a service that currently costs $64.99 per month) and as a standalone a-la-carte option via the new YouTube Primetime Channels hub.
Google has not disclosed how its Sunday Ticket offering would be priced. DirecTV charges $300 for a full-season package.
The agreement officially closes out the NFL’s latest round of media rights deals, which kicked off in March 2021 with a multibillion-dollar series of renewals with legacy TV partners CBS, Fox, NBC and ESPN. At the same time the Sunday and Monday night game packages were locked in, the league inked an $11 billion pact to relocate Thursday Night Football to Amazon Prime Video.
In finalizing the long-brewing Sunday Ticket distribution scheme, the NFL closes out its legacy deal with it DirecTV, which has held the exclusive rights to the package since its launch in 1994. Under the terms of its October 2014 renewal with the league, DirecTV had paid an average fee of $1.5 billion per year.
While DirecTV will no longer carry Sunday Ticket, the satellite-TV operator may still be in the running for a sublicense allowing it to beam the afternoon games into bars and restaurants, an arrangement in keeping with its side deal with Amazon and Thursday Night Football.
“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 statement released Thursday morning. “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.”
Google this summer reported that YouTube TV has signed on more than 5 million accounts, a tally that includes trial subscriptions. Per a recent National Research Group report, YouTube is the sports world’s most trafficked streaming service, edging out the likes of Amazon Prime, ESPN+ and Hulu.
The Sunday Ticket deal does not include a stake in NFL Media, which includes the linear cable channels NFL Network and RedZone. Since negotiations began some 18 months ago, the league had been looking to offload an interest in its homegrown media unit. During the process of finding a new home for the games package, the NFL reviewed bids from Apple, Amazon and ESPN.
The Sunday Ticket deal not only serves to add a new media partner to the mix, it expands the NFL’s streaming presence as pay TV’s reach erodes. As of the third quarter, traditional cable/satellite/telco-TV penetration has been whittled down to just 50% of all U.S. TV homes, down from 86% just eight years ago.
“As the ways fans enjoy NFL football evolve in a changing media landscape, partnerships with innovators like YouTube will ensure that more games are available to more fans,” said Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots and chairman of the NFL’s Media Committee. “This partnership will grow our game for future generations and allow them to follow their favorite sport.”
