The next wave of NFL broadcast deals could include plenty of changes. One change could be the end of the out-of-market package of games.
Via Alex Sherman of CNBC, YouTube believes that the NFL could “deconstruct” Sunday Ticket.
The league first launched Sunday Ticket in 1994, marketing it as a way for fans to watch games not televised in the markets where they reside. DirecTV owned the package for years, before YouTube acquired the rights in 2023.
The current Sunday Ticket deal with YouTube, for which the company pays $2 billion per year, remains the subject of a federal class action that is pending on appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, The case could still result in a massive liability for the NFL (in excess of $14 billion). It also could generate a court order compelling the NFL to end the longstanding device for allowing fans to watch all games played in the Sunday afternoon windows.
The NFL lost at trial in 2024. The jury found that the NFL’s pricing of the package, which was intended to be high enough to persuade many viewers to choose to watch the CBS and Fox games available in their local markets, violated the antitrust laws.
The judge didn’t throw out the entire verdict; he dismissed the damages award. The finding of an antitrust violation remains in place — and it continues.
At some point, there likely will be a reckoning. And the league has already explored the possibility of making the games available through other platforms, simulating a college football viewing experience that has a wide variety of games on various cable and broadcast platforms.
Quite possibly, the league could make as much or more money by selling in-market games to a pair of broadcast networks, with the out-of-market games sprinkled throughout the various other channels on the dial.
Regardless of the revenue potential, the league will have no choice, if a court compels them to dismantle Sunday Ticket. And it would allow fans to watch games on networks to which they already have access, without paying nearly $400 per year for it.
Ditching Sunday Ticket would also address concerns that the league has devalued it by putting more and more games into non-Sunday windows. And it would give the NFL the freedom to more aggressively schedule games for Wednesday nights and, eventually, Tuesday nights.
