YouTube Beats Apple To NFL Sunday Ticket Deal: Here's How Much They're Paying And Why It's Important

The National Football League is turning to a streaming company for the NFL Sunday Ticket rights. Here’s the latest on the rights to premium National Football League content.

What Happened: Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL)-owned YouTube has won the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket, beating out a list of competitors for the highly coveted sports rights.

It was recently reported that Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL), which was seen as a front runner for NFL Sunday Ticket, was bowing out of the race. Previous suitors also included Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) and The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS).

YouTube is paying an average annual price of $2 billion for the rights, according to a Thursday Wall Street Journal report. 

DirecTV, which is owned by AT&T Inc (NYSE: T), previously had the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket and was paying $1.5 billion annually. DirecTV has around 13.5 million subscribers and could be hit hard by the loss of the NFL programming. 

Along with YouTube landing the package, the NFL is also seeking to license the rights for Sunday Ticket to bars and restaurants for an additional $200 million, according to the WSJ report.

YouTube TV has over 5 million subscribers. The company’s overall YouTube platform has over 2 billion monthly users and remains one of the market leaders for video content.

YouTube TV will offer the NFL Sunday Ticket platform as an add-on offering. No price details were available.

YouTube TV now costs around $64.99 per month. Sunday Ticket on DirecTV comes with a $300 annual cost for subscribers.

“We’ll be able to showcase these NFL games in a way that I think no other platform can,” YouTube Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan said.

Related Link: Apple Said To Be Out Of NFL Sunday Ticket Talks As Tech Giant Didn't See Logic In Fine Print 

Why It’s Important: YouTube winning NFL Sunday Ticket and several other streaming companies being among the frontrunners could signal a shift for sports rights.

Amazon.com won the rights to the Thursday Night Football games from the NFL.

Apple has been aggressive in acquiring sports rights and shows no signs of slowing down in this sector. The company recently signed deals with Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer.

Sunday Ticket offers access to all Sunday games for out-of-market teams. The package is popular among NFL fans and those who play fantasy sports and bet on the games.

The NFL has seen rights to games rise significantly in value. The company counts Amazon, Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA), Disney, Fox Corp (NASDAQ: FOX) and Paramount Global (NASDAQ: PARA) (NASDAQ: PARAA) as rights partners.

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