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UPDATE July 8th: We are still waiting on who will own the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket in 2023, but we now know it will be through a streaming service, per Brian Steinberg. Roger Goodell told CNBC that the hope is to have a new deal done by the fall. As it stands, reports have Apple TV as the frontrunner.
ProFootballTalk also reports that the streaming service may not help out with cost:
As also reported by CNBC, the contracts between the NFL and CBS/Fox prevent the DirecTV successor from significantly slashing the $300 per year price for the package. This protects the companies that have paid big money for the ability to put games on the local affiliates available in a given area.
There will be a new service providing NFL games through Sunday Ticket in 2023. This will be the last season the satellite service Direct TV will have rights to the package after launching in 1994.
It now looks like Apple is the front runner to win the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket, per Pro Football Talk. We already saw Amazon buy up exclusive rights to Thursday Night Football for $1 billion, but it looks like the NFL is going to go even deeper into an internet streaming platform with Apple.
The going price appears to be around $2.5 billion, as the NFL spreads its broadcasting rights across multiple avenues. Other than Amazon and possibly Apple, the NFL has deals with Fox, Disney, CNS and NBC, totaling over $100 billion in 10-year contracts. If you thought wide receivers wanted a lot, just wait a year.
It is impossible to know how Apple would charge for Sunday Ticket or how they would package the games, but compared to Direct TV, we should expect easier access to the product. The NFL sticking with Direct TV for almost 30 years didn’t make all that much sense, especially with so many ways to watch games that don’t involve drilling a satellite dish into your roof.