NFL Sunday Ticket Going to YouTube
After 28 years of being on DirecTV, NFL Sunday Ticket is headed to YouTube and YouTube TV starting in 2023. The league’s multiyear deal with Google will make the service available as an add-on for the vMVPD and a standalone a-la-carte on YouTube Primetime channels, a collection of streamers such as Showtime or Curiosity Stream that can host original or curated content.
“For a number of years we have been focused on increased digital distribution of our games and this strategic partnership is yet another example of us looking towards the future and building the next generation of NFL fans,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said.
Sunday Ticket offers all out-of-market regular-season games on Fox and CBS, depending on the viewer’s location. More features and functions will be revealed in the future. The service was created in 1994 and was distributed by DirecTV from the get-go.
The provider is on an eight-year, $1.5 billion/year contract that will expire at the end of this season. While the NFL was speculated to be wanting $2.5 billion per season in its new deal, the Wall Street Journal reports that YouTube will pay around $2 billion/year.
The league and Google have been working together since 2015 when the NFL’s official YouTube channel was launched. Since then, all 32 of the league’s teams have their own channels and the league has 10 official channels. The NFL already has a presence on YouTube TV with NFL Network and the RedZone channel available to the vMVPD’s subscribers.
It was once rumored that Apple was the frontrunner to acquire the rights to Sunday Ticket, but that dwindled when the company didn’t want to meet some of the league’s demands. Other companies that had their hat in the ring included Amazon and ESPN.
