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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.

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Big Tech split? Google to sign EU’s AI guidelines despite Meta snub

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Big Tech split? Google to sign EU’s AI guidelines despite Meta snub

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Google on Wednesday said it will sign the European Union’s guidelines on artificial intelligence, which Meta previously rebuffed due to concerns they could stifle innovation.

In a blog post, Google said it planned to sign the code in the hope that it would promote European citizens’ access to advanced new AI tools, as they become available.

Google’s endorsement comes after Meta recently said it would refuse to sign the code over concerns that it could constrain European AI innovation.

“Prompt and widespread deployment is important,” Kent Walker, president of global affairs of Google, said in the post, adding that embracing AI could boost Europe’s economy by 1.4 trillion euros ($1.62 trillion) annually by 2034.

The European Commission, which is the executive body of the EU, published a final iteration of its code of practice for general-purpose AI models, leaving it up to companies to decide if they want to sign.

The guidelines lay out how to meet the requirements of the EU AI Act, a landmark law overseeing the technology, when it comes to transparency, safety, and security.

However, Google also flagged fears over the potential for the guidelines to slow technological advances around AI.

“We remain concerned that the AI Act and Code risk slowing Europe’s development and deployment of AI,” Kent Walker, president of global affairs of Google, said in the post Wednesday.

“In particular, departures from EU copyright law, steps that slow approvals, or requirements that expose trade secrets could chill European model development and deployment, harming Europe’s competitiveness.”

Earlier this month, Meta declined to sign the EU AI code of practice, calling it an overreach that would “stunt” the industry.

“Europe is heading down the wrong path on AI,” Joel Kaplan, Meta’s global affairs chief, wrote in a LinkedIn post at the time. “This code introduces a number of legal uncertainties for model developers, as well as measures which go far beyond the scope of the AI Act.”

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South Korea’s LG Energy Solution signs $4.3 billion battery supply deal with undisclosed party

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South Korea's LG Energy Solution signs .3 billion battery supply deal with undisclosed party

The logo of LG Electronics is seen on the opening day of the Integrated Systems Europe exhibition in Barcelona on January 31, 2023.

Pau Barrena | Afp | Getty Images

South Korea-based LG Energy Solution announced Wednesday that it had signed a $4.3 billion contract for supplying batteries to a major corporation, without naming the customer.

The effective date of contract — receipt of orders — began Tuesday and will conclude at the end of July, 2030. During this period, the counterparty will not be disclosed to maintain business confidentiality, the company’s filing with the Korea Exchange showed Wednesday. Reuters reported that Tesla was the counterparty.

Earlier this week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the EV maker was behind a previously undisclosed $16.5 billion chip contract with South Korea’s Samsung Electronics. 

LG Energy said in its filing that details of the contract such as the deal amount were subject to change and the contract period could be extended by up to seven years. 

“Investors are advised to carefully consider the possibility of changes or termination of the contract when making investment decisions,” the company cautioned. It’s shares were trading 0.26% lower. 

The filing did not clarify whether the lithium iron phosphate batteries would be used in vehicles or energy storage systems. Its major battery customers include American electric-vehicle makers Tesla and General Motors.

The company has been expanding its battery production in the U.S., and is constructing a plant in Arizona that will produce lithium iron phosphate batteries. 

LG Energy Solution and Tesla did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment. 

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CyberArk’s stock jumps on report Palo Alto Networks in talks to buy company for over $20 billion

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CyberArk's stock jumps on report Palo Alto Networks in talks to buy company for over  billion

Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks, looks on during the closing bell at the Nasdaq Market in New York City, U.S., March 25, 2025.

Jeenah Moon | Reuters

CyberArk shares soared as much as 18% on Tuesday after The Wall Street Journal reported that cybersecurity provider Palo Alto Networks has held discussions to buy the identity management software maker for over $20 billion.

Cloud security is becoming an increasingly critical piece of the enterprise tech stack, especially as rapid advancements in artificial intelligence bring with them a whole new set of threats, and as ransomware attacks become more commonplace.

Founded in 2005, Palo Alto Networks has emerged in recent years as a consolidator in the cybersecurity industry and has grown into the biggest player in the space by market cap, with a valuation of over $130 billion. CEO Nikesh Arora, who was appointed to the job in 2018, has been on a spending spree, snapping up Protect AI in a deal that closed in July, and in 2023 buying Talon Cyber Security, Dig Security and Zycada Networks.

But CyberArk would represent by far Arora’s biggest bet yet. The Israeli company, which went public in 2014, provides technology that helps companies streamline the process of logging on to applications for employees.

CyberArk faces competition from Microsoft, Okta and IBM‘s HashiCorp. Another rival, SailPoint, returned to the public markets in February.

With Tuesday’s rally, CyberArk shares climbed to a record, surpassing their prior all-time high reached in February. The stock is up 29% this year, pushing the company’s market cap to almost $21 billion, after jumping 52% in 2024. Palo Alto shares, meanwhile, slid 3.5% on the report and are now up about 9% for the year.

Representatives from Palo Alto Networks and CyberArk declined to comment.

During the first quarter, CyberArk generated around $11.5 million in net income on around $318 million in revenue, which was up 43% from a year earlier.

It’s been an active stretch for big deals in the cyber market. Google said in March that it was spending $32 billion on Wiz, its largest acquisition on record by far, and a purchase intended to bolster its cloud business with greater AI security technology.

Networking giant Cisco also made its biggest deal ever in the security space, buying Splunk in 2023 for $28 billion. Splunk’s technology helps businesses monitor and analyze their data to minimize the risk of hacks and resolve technical issues faster.

— CNBC’s Ari Levy contributed to this report

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