The NFL (National Football League), the highest hall of American football, is recognized as the last bastion of traditional TV. Every season of the NFL finals, the Super Bowl attracts countless fans to watch. At the same time, because the fans will not take their eyes off the game, the highest advertising record is set every year. In 2023, the US National Universal Group sold the 2023 Super Bowl advertisement with a world record of 6.5 million U.S. dollars in 30 seconds.
In other words, the Super Bowl has the most advertisements in the world, and it is the time when Americans with powerful spending power are most likely to be tempted by advertisements. You make a lot of money.
In addition to the NFL Super Bowl finals, NFL also sells season season broadcast rights, which is called NFL Sunday Ticket. Because the broadcast rights of the NFL home team games in various places belong to local TV stations, but there is no way to watch local TV stations and want to watch other regions. For the season, buy a Sunday package.
Apple’s rare active involvement
DirecTV, the live broadcast satellite service in California, USA, has always taken away the Sunday package tickets, because it can transfer the game to other satellite-covered areas while the satellite coverage does not affect the interests of local TV stations. Although there is no way to sell advertisements, it can get a stable passenger flow quantity.
After the rise of streaming services, Apple brought the broadcasting rights of Sunday package tickets into streaming services, allowing games to be broadcast in areas that cannot be covered by satellites, and providing live streaming services for NFL fans. This also means that Apple can enter the most profitable sport in the world threshold.
At the beginning of July, the NFL revealed a heavyweight news——DirecTV will sell the broadcast rights of the Sunday package to an audio-visual streaming company after 30 years of DirecTV’s exclusive Sunday package contract.
Perhaps to prove its sincerity, Apple even negotiated with the NFL to sponsor next year’s Super Bowl midfielder — the famous Super Bowl halftime show. Just when all signs point to Apple, a jaw-dropping news quietly leaked out before the official announcement of the NFL.
YouTube TV Variant bites gold
The “New York Times” reported that YouTube TV came out halfway and snatched the rights to broadcast NFL Sunday tickets at a price of US$2.5 billion a year , which is not only 66% higher than DirecTV’s US$1.5 billion, but also probably higher than Apple’s willingness to pay. . The 9to5mac website pointed out that after Apple hopes to buy the NFL Sunday package broadcast rights, it will provide users with free access to the season season, but it violates the contract between the NFL and other TV stations-in addition, it may also affect ticket revenue.
According to media estimates, DirecTV currently has about 1.5 million to 2 million Sunday package subscribers. If you look at the subscription price of 300 US dollars a season, DirecTV can get 400 million to 600 million booking revenue in a season. Although the book loses money, it brings DirecTV. Stabilize user traffic. In addition to YouTube’s own 2.5 billion users, YouTube TV also has 5 million users in the United States, and its development potential is much higher than that of DirecTV’s satellite network service.
At present, almost all media sources point out that YouTube TV’s acquisition of the broadcasting rights of the Sunday package is a done deal. The Athletic website quoted people in the NFL industry as saying that Apple’s business model in media and public broadcasting is far more advanced than that of Apple, which has just joined this market-this may also be one of the important indicators for NFL evaluation.
Obviously, if YouTube spends $2.5 billion to buy the rights to broadcast Sunday tickets, it will be almost impossible to earn back from subscriptions alone, but for North American countries that are crazy about American football, this will be an indispensable force for the growth of YouTube TV users. After all, the NFL also has the rights to broadcast Thursday Night Football , which has low ratings, and was also acquired by Amazon for $1.1 billion, which proves how attractive American football is.
Daniel J. Brown
Daniel J. Brown (Editor-in-Chief) is a recently retired data analyst who gets a kick out of reading and writing the news. He enjoys good music, great food, and sports, with a slant towards Southern college football, basketball and professional baseball.