NFL Sunday Ticket still up for grabs as Apple pushes for flexibility with game rights

Published

3 years ago

October 14, 2022

admin

Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes (15) is sacked by Los Angeles Chargers linebacker Drue Tranquill (49) in the first quarter at Arrowhead Stadium on Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022, in Kansas City, Missouri.

Tammy Ljungblad | Tribune News Service | Getty Images

The National Football League season is heading into Week 6, and it’s still unclear which company will become the new owner of Sunday Ticket rights — the only remaining exclusive broadcast package that hasn’t been renewed until 2030.

Apple has been among the favorites to land the package, in part because the league already has broadcast deals in place with rival bidders, including Disney and Amazon. A partnership with Apple would allow the NFL to build a relationship with the deepest-pocketed company in the world.

But existing restrictions around Sunday Ticket have slowed negotiations between Apple and the NFL in recent months, according to people familiar with the matter. Talks between the league and potential buyers of Sunday Ticket are continuing, the people said.

Spokespeople for Apple and the NFL declined to comment.

The NFL and Apple, two of the most powerful corporate entities in the world, are used to getting what they want.

Apple isn’t interested in simply acting as a conduit for broadcasting games, according to Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services. Cue oversees Apple’s media and sports partnerships and its streaming service, Apple TV+. Apple is looking for partnerships with sports leagues in which it can offer consumers more than standard rights agreements — such as having free rein to offer games globally or in local markets. Apple has that type of deal with Major League Soccer, a 10-year partnership that begins in 2023.

“We weren’t interested in buying sports rights,” Cue said this week at a Paley Center for Media panel in New York. “There’s all kinds of capabilities that we’re going to be able to do together because we have everything together. And so if I have a great idea, I don’t have to think about, OK, well, my contract or the deal of interest will allow this.”

The iPhone maker is MLS’s exclusive broadcast partner, though some linear networks may buy simulcast rights to the soccer league’s games. The pact allows Apple to stream every game of every season for the next 10 years globally. It plans to build MLS steaming capabilities into its apps, such as Apple News.

While a “great idea” by Cue could potentially manifest into a practical solution quickly with MLS, the same may not be feasible with the NFL, which has been in business with Fox, Paramount Global, Comcast‘s NBCUniversal and Disney for decades. The league also sold its “Thursday Night Football” package to Amazon.

The NFL last year renewed broadcast TV agreements with both Fox and CBS until 2030. Those deals guarantee exclusivity of local games. Fox and CBS have devised entire corporate strategies around that exclusivity, including buying local TV stations that line up with NFL markets where they own rights. For example, Fox owns local stations in locations including Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. — all places with NFC teams, because Fox owns the NFC Sunday package.

Sunday Ticket is also a U.S.-only product. It remains unclear what the NFL is willing to give Apple to enhance a deal beyond what it’s sold to DirecTV for the past 28 years. Still, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told CNBC in July part of the benefit of selling to a streamer is to “innovate beyond where we are today.”

I believe NFL media rights will be moving to a streaming service, says NFL's Goodell

Goodell said he plans to choose a new Sunday Ticket home by fall of this year. On that timeline, a winning bidder should be announced in the next 10 weeks. The NFL wants a buyer for Sunday Ticket to pay between $2 billion and $3 billion annually, CNBC has previously reported. That’s a significant increase from the $1.5 billion DirecTV has been paying since 2015. The league is also looking for a company to purchase a minority stake in NFL Media, which includes linear cable networks RedZone and NFL Network, as well as NFL.com. The NFL has been packing the minority stake with Sunday Ticket, though it could decide to sell each separately, Goodell said.

Beyond its MLS partnership, Apple has been laying breadcrumbs that it wants to take a significant plunge into live sports. Apple struck a deal with Major League Baseball to carry exclusive Friday night games this season. And last month, the NFL announced Apple Music as the new partner for the Super Bowl halftime show.

The longer the NFL waits to reach a deal, the less time a new owner of the rights will have to market the product for next season. DirecTV executives have been waiting for nearly two years for a new partner to be announced and have been surprised with how long it’s taken to find one, according to people familiar with the matter. DirecTV has routinely lost money on Sunday Ticket and isn’t participating in this round of bidding, CNBC reported in June.

The satellite provider would be interested in maintaining its commercial agreement to carry games in bars and restaurants or act as a pass-through for the Sunday Ticket winner, where existing DirecTV customers could continue to get the package through its pay-TV service, CNBC reported in June.

Disclosure: Comcast’s NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.

WATCH: Tech analyst Gene Munster on Apple, tech world

Munster: Amid the tech wreck, look to Apple and Meta for pockets of comfort

Technology

CNBC Daily Open: U.S. stocks retreat from highs as Broadcom leads tech sell-off

Published

7 hours ago

December 15, 2025

admin

CNBC Daily Open: U.S. stocks retreat from highs as Broadcom leads tech sell-off

Signage at the Broadcom Inc. headquarters in San Jose, California, U.S., on Monday, June 2, 2025.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The sell-off in artificial intelligence stocks continued unabated Friday stateside. Broadcom shares tumbled more than 11% as investors grew concerned over lower margins and uncertain deals. Names such as Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Oracle fell in sympathy, which caused major U.S. indexes to close lower.

It was a motif patterning the week. Even though the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.1% week on week on the back of outperformance by financial stocks, tech names dragged down the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite, which fell 0.6% and 1.6% respectively for the week.

That said, investors could have just been jittery amid the narrative of an apparent AI bubble, and were spooked by any sign of bad news. After all, Broadcom’s earnings — as well as its guidance for the current quarter — breezed past expectations.

“Frankly we aren’t sure what else one could desire as the company’s AI story continues to not only overdeliver but is doing it at an accelerating rate,” Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon, who has a “buy” rating on Broadcom, wrote in a Friday note.

Future prospects also look rosy, according to UBS. “We expect high profitability and the accelerating impact of the AI, power and resources, and longevity themes to drive 2026 performance,” said strategist Sagar Khandelwal.

But in the near term, investors may still be flighty, unless something concretely reassuring, such as Oracle achieving positive cash flow, reassures them the snapping sound is just a twig in the forest.

What you need to know today

U.S. stocks dragged down by AI names. Major indexes fell Friday, a day after they hit record highs. Asia-Pacific markets traded lower Monday. South Korea’s Kospi retreated roughly 1.5% as of 2:45 p.m. Singapore time (1:45 a.m. ET), leading losses in the region.

China’s economic slowdown deepens. Even though the country’s retail sales and industrial production grew year on year in November, their increase missed forecasts and slowed from the previous month. Investment in fixed assets in the January-to-November period contracted from a year earlier.

The end of the ‘Berkshire way’? Several aspects of Berkshire Hathaway’s leadership transition are signaling that the conglomerate is drifting away from the famously decentralized “Berkshire way,” CNBC’s Alex Crippen writes.

Hong Kong court finds Jimmy Lai guilty. The 78-year-old pro-democracy activist and media baron was ruled guilty of sedition and collusion with foreign countries by a Hong Kong court on Monday. The results might unsettle foreign investors, analysts say.

[PRO] China’s food security strategy. The spat between Beijing and Washington over soybean purchases has highlighted the evolution of China’s domestic agriculture industry. Goldman Sachs thinks this is the best way to play the sector.

And finally…

Copper prices have soared this year, hitting multiple record highs, fueled by supply disruptions and fears over U.S. tariffs.

Imagebroker/sunny Celeste | Imagebroker | Getty Images

Copper could hit ‘stratospheric new highs’ as hoarding of the metal in U.S. continues

Copper prices have hit multiple record highs this year, fueled by supply disruptions and as fears over U.S. tariffs have led to a surge in demand. The rally is set to continue into 2026.

Citi analysts expect prices of the red metal to skyrocket on the back of stronger demand led by the energy transition and artificial intelligence sectors. Electrification, grid expansion and data-center build-outs require large amounts of the metal for wiring, power transmission and cooling infrastructure.

— Lee Ying Shan

Technology

CNBC Daily Open: Investors sell off tech despite steady Broadcom numbers

Published

13 hours ago

December 15, 2025

admin

CNBC Daily Open: Investors sell off tech despite steady Broadcom numbers

Signage at the Broadcom Inc. headquarters in San Jose, California, U.S., on Monday, June 2, 2025.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

What you need to know today

U.S. stocks dragged down by AI names. Major indexes fell Friday, a day after they hit record highs. The pan-European Stoxx 600 retreated almost 0.5%. Separately, the U.K. economy unexpectedly shrank 0.1% in the three months to October.

Oracle will finish data centers on time. The company issued its response to a Bloomberg report, which cited unnamed people, that Oracle will complete data centers for OpenAI in 2028 rather than 2027. “There have been no delays,” Oracle said.

Coinbase to have an in-house prediction market. It will be powered be Kalshi, a source close to the matter told CNBC, and is a play to expand asset classes available on the cryptocurrency exchange.

[PRO] China’s food security strategy. The spate between Beijing and Washington over soybean purchases has highlighted the evolution of China’s domestic agriculture industry. Goldman Sachs thinks this is the best way to play the sector.

And finally…

A bear statue stands outside the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, operated by Deutsche Boerse AG, in Frankfurt, Germany, on Friday, March 13, 2020. Top European CEOs are fearing a euro zone recession as a confluence of economic shocks continues to threaten the outlook for the bloc.

Alex Kraus | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Global week ahead: Europe under fire

U.S. President Donald Trump’s verdict on Europe: a “decaying” group of nations led by “weak” people. His criticism in a recent Politico interview adds to a tough period for the bloc, with challenges on multiple fronts testing European leaders in the final weeks of the year.

This week looks set to be critical, with a high-stakes summit in Brussels and the European Central Bank’s final policy meeting of the year. Key topics for this week include defrosting frozen Russian assets for Ukraine aid; EU vs. U.S. in trade and tech, and updated economic figures at the ECB meeting.

— Leonie Kidd