The Los Angeles Chargers ran against Austin Ekeler, center, adding some distance while Tennessee Titans defender Monty Rice, left, and safety player Andrew Adams (47 years old) tried to make a tackle inside. second half at SoFi Stadium on Sunday, December 18, 2022 in Los Angeles, CA.
Allen J. Schaben | Los Angeles Times | beautiful pictures
The National Football League had the streaming service in mind when it was looking for a new home for the rights to its “Sunday Ticket” subscription game bundle.
The tournament achieved the desired result in an agreement with Googleof YouTube. Traditional TV networks also get what they want.
Starting next season, “Sunday Tickets” will be offered in two ways through YouTube: as an add-on to the YouTube TV service, a digital TV bundle that mirrors a traditional pay TV package, or Order food through YouTube’s Primetime Channel.
YouTube is paying about $2 billion annually for residential rights over the next seven years, CNBC reported. The process ended this week after months of negotiations with potential winners like Apple, Amazon and Disney, the company that operates the ESPN+ streaming service.
While pricing hasn’t been determined, consumers will likely make more money by subscribing to YouTubeTV and adding in the “Sunday Ticket,” which shows off-market NFL games on Sunday afternoons. It will also give them access to nearly all NFL games in one place. Google’s YouTube TV bundle includes broadcasters like CBS, Fox, and NBC. Tech giants Apple and Amazon don’t offer the same bundle service with pay TV or TV networks, such as the ESPN and NFL Networks.
Sports, and the NFL in particular, have long been seen as the glue that holds traditional TV packages together. Sports networks and those that offer live games attract some of the highest fees from pay TV operators, and they achieve some of the highest ratings. The NFL makes big bucks for broadcasting live games.
For this reason, executives at longstanding pay-TV and television networks, who declined to be named because they are not authorized to speak publicly, see the YouTube deal as a favorable outcome. advantage over Apple or Amazon receiving this package.
YouTube and the NFL did not immediately comment.
long live bundle
paramountby CBS and fox broadcast weekly Sunday afternoon matches. ComcastNBC is the home of “Sunday Night Football,” and Disneywhich owns ESPN and ABC, holds the rights to “Monday Night Football.”
Each paid huge sums for those rights. Last year, collectively, four people agreed to pay more than 100 billion USD throughout 11-year packages to broadcast NFL games.
As for networks like NBC, CBS, and ESPN, they simultaneously broadcast NFL games on their fledgling streaming platforms to audiences who have turned away from the pay-TV package.
All of those games are available through Google’s YouTube TV bundle, with the exception of “Thursday Night Football,” which now streams exclusively on Amazon Prime.
“YouTube is in many ways a very unique and exciting platform,” Dhruv Prasad, the NFL’s senior vice president of strategic investment and media strategy, said on a media call this week. this, “because we’ve chosen a partner that really supports, in many ways, our current distribution with Sunday afternoon and Monday night. We really think this is the model. will bring real benefits to existing partners.”
While deals with traditional operators are hugely profitable for the NFL, the league has been open about wanting more streaming partners. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said long before the outcome of the negotiations, the league considered a streaming partner the future of the “Sunday Ticket,” which was only offered through the satellite TV operator. DirecTV since 1994.
Although YouTube is only streaming, YouTube offers a TV bundle maintenance plan – by paying the same price as regular distributors, this has caused subscription prices to spike. According to data from MoffettNathanson, YouTube TV had more than 5.3 million subscribers as of Q3, beating competitors like Disney’s Hulu Live TV+, Fubo TV, and Dish’s Sling.
Sports media consultant Pat Crakes said: “This is a win for YouTube TV because it serves the larger goal of getting more subscribers. And ultimately, it helps a group of channels. linear”. good price,” to help them bolster their streaming service.
Executives told CNBC that adding another NFL attribute to the equation to make the TV package more engaging with customers is a positive for the networks.
The streaming business, especially for established media companies, is coming under pressure recently. As companies race to shape and scale their own offerings, Netflix, fierce competition is currently weighing on subscriber numbers and the cost of content is skyrocketing. While streaming is still a priority, some media CEOs are thinking again amount of content to remove from the traditional package and put into streaming.
Package is dead
However, for some traditional media, YouTube becoming the home of “Sunday Tickets” is not welcome news.
For pay-TV operators, this could lead to many customers cutting their traditional packages and replacing them with YouTube TV, people close to the distributor said.
In the third quarter, cord-cutting hit an all-time low, according to research firm MoffettNathanson.
“The linear model won’t die of old age, it will die of abandonment,” analyst Craig Moffett said in a recent note. “If lynchpin content – read: marquee sports programming – is only available on linear platforms, then the linear model will stay the same, at least for a while and at least for a segment. ”
Directing customers to YouTube TV subscriptions or simply a la carte options has only increased pay TV customers from traditional cable and telecommunications operators, such as Charter Communications, Comcast and Dish. Moderators in that industry had hoped Apple would win the “Sunday Ticket” rights, people close to several distributors said, as it would not offer another linear plan option.
One positive for distributors is that while YouTube TV has broadcast and pay TV networks that offer NFL and sports games, the streamer still doesn’t offer regional sports networks. area as part of its package. For an all-round sports fan, this still makes the traditional package a better choice.
However, that could change. This week, Sinclair’s regional sports networks signed an agreement with Fubo TV, bringing their portfolio of networks to a digital pay-TV bundle. Such a deal with YouTube TV may not be far off from the recent “Sunday Ticket” bundle.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.
