The NFL is only flush with cash because they can soak the networks for money. Apple has plenty of money and has just as much leverage as the NFL.
DIRECTV unlikely to keep NFL Sunday Ticket
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Another incorrect statement from you.
I have no idea what cash they have on hand since the NFL is not a public company, but I found this-
With skyrocketing revenue and mouth-watering profitability, NFL teams are now worth $4.47 billion on average, 28% more than just a year ago.
So, roughly, $144 Billion, since all the money bought in is split among all the teams, to keep it simple, we will say it is worth $150-200 Billion Total.
Now Apple-The tech sector giant ended the three months ended in March 2021 with cash and investments of $204 billion.
The total of Apple is worth over $2 Trillion dollars.
NFL Team Values 2022: Dallas Cowboys Are The First Franchise Worth $8 Billion
With skyrocketing revenue and mouthwatering profitability, NFL teams are now worth $4.47 billion on average, 28% more than just a year ago.www.forbes.com
Apple's Got A $204 Billion 'Problem' That's Costing It A Fortune
Not only did Apple smash first-quarter profit forecasts, it just broke past another S&P 500 threshold: Cash and investments.www.investors.com
The NFL does not need apple...Apple wants the Sunday Ticket( thats why they bid on it)....not sure why you think I made a incorrect statementAnother incorrect statement from you.
I have no idea what cash they have on hand since the NFL is not a public company, but I found this-
With skyrocketing revenue and mouth-watering profitability, NFL teams are now worth $4.47 billion on average, 28% more than just a year ago.
So, roughly, $144 Billion, since all the money bought in is split among all the teams, to keep it simple, we will say it is worth $150-200 Billion Total.
Now Apple-The tech sector giant ended the three months ended in March 2021 with cash and investments of $204 billion.
The total of Apple is worth over $2 Trillion dollars.
NFL Team Values 2022: Dallas Cowboys Are The First Franchise Worth $8 Billion
With skyrocketing revenue and mouthwatering profitability, NFL teams are now worth $4.47 billion on average, 28% more than just a year ago.
Apple's Got A $204 Billion 'Problem' That's Costing It A Fortune
Not only did Apple smash first-quarter profit forecasts, it just broke past another S&P 500 threshold: Cash and investments.
Funny you think that....Thats why every company that owns and sells products spun their own streaming services. I guess are cable bills should be $49 a month with your thinking!
Ill give you sports adds 1/3, of the price. But I think all these 2 bit channels controlled by 7 providers are screwing us just fine!
Why worry?. they will reevaluate when the contracts expire...maybe things will be different...thats gonna be a long time from nowSure. We know technology changes have never eliminated entire industries
That is true now, and not the point.
The NFL should be worried about the future of OTA Fox and CBS. That is their cash cow. Of course, broadcast networks needs sports, that’s some of their most watched shows.
What will the broadcast networks look like in 10 years when the time comes to renew their current contracts?
2021 Broadcast TV Ratings See Huge Drop from 2015 Viewership
One of the most important demographics in entertainment viewership is the 18-49 age range. This is seen as the target audience for, well, just aboutcomicyears.com
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OTA is actually a very small part of the Television audience, only 15% of Households uses a Antenna, so out of 123 Million Households, a tad above 18 million.
While Live TV subscribers is at 68 million( includes all Live TV subs, including YTTV, Hulu Live, etc).
In 2013, Live TV had 100.5 million subs, they are now losing 2 million a quarter, as of now they are predicting it will be down to 57 million in 4 years.
Number of pay TV households in the U.S. 2028 | Statista
The number of traditional U.S. pay-TV households, including cable subscribers, was 58 million in 2023. A forecast suggests a drop to 41 million by 2028.
www.statista.com
Streaming and OTA, costs I have no idea.
Apple wants, doesn't need it. They will be fine if they don't get it. DTV needs it, they will collapse without it.
Yes, all those rural folks who are huge fans of out-of-market NFL teams and are willing to spend $300 or more for the package. As I say, that's such a small niche that the incremental revenue that a streamer would get from allowing DTV Sat to resell the package to those folks wouldn't be worth the lack of exclusivity.
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Yes, since the vast majority of those channels give us nothing but reruns with commercials, I can get that from Pluto TV and not have that per channel fee that we pay in our monthly bill.
This is why I am glad I do not pay for a RSN that I will never watch, not fair for me to help subsidize a sports channel here in Florida just so others can watch it.
I pay for what I want, I have the MLB package so I can watch the Tigers from back home, same for having ESPN+ for the Red Wings and I will get NFLST next year and not have to pay over $1500 a year to DirecTV to receive it.
And that is why I am giving up Live TV after the Football Season, tired of paying for certain 2 bit stations, even channels that has new content that I will never watch, like the Discovery suite of Channels ( Food Network for example), have a Live TV bill, I have to pay for it, going no Live TV, no one is forcing me to subscribe to Discovery+.
Wow. Not only a lack of knowledge of how Nielsen works, but a lack of understanding what market cap means.
Anyway, the NFL rights are signed, sealed and delivered through 2030 to NBC, CBS, Fox, and ABC/ESPN. They are not for sale. Apple can want a deal like it got with the MLS all day long. Those rights are sold.
BTW, the MLS is, generally, the lowest national broadcast in the ratings every week, getting something like a 0.15, which is infomercial level. Even Euro soccer does way better at odd hours. The RSN ratings for soccer are likewise nothing like MLB, NBA, or even NHL ratings.
What is left is ST. A niche product that provides games produced by Fox and CBS, including their commercials, not shown on the local affiliates. Required to be sold at a premium price as to not cut too deeply into local affiliates. That is what is up for bids. If Apple wants more than that, it needs to deal with the rights owners, not the NFL.
What is happening here is pretty clear, if you understand the broadcasting business. The NFL would prefer to be in business with Apple because, one, the ST package cannot make money and must be predicated and Apple TV is far less “we already have that anyway” than Amazon, making ST more valuable to Apple than Amazon Two, because the NFL wants to be in business with “everybody” so there is no “out group” that can work against it. And, three, because Apple has the money to lose on this money losing package.
But Apple has figured out where its comfort zone is, and the NFL wants more than that. Of course, every one with bid was prepared to lose money, everyone who knows the first thing about the business understands that ST cannot make money on a cash basis, but Apple, like everybody else, has limits, and, before walking away, is taking a last stab at “thinking outside the box” by asking for things that have already been sold to the linear networks. Those are simply not for sale. The linear networks’ deals are about a thousand times more important to the NFL than ST.
Anyway, the NFL rights are signed, sealed and delivered through 2030 to NBC, CBS, Fox, and ABC/ESPN. They are not for sale. Apple can want a deal like it got with the MLS all day long. Those rights are sold.
BTW, the MLS is, generally, the lowest national broadcast in the ratings every week, getting something like a 0.15, which is infomercial level. Even Euro soccer does way better at odd hours. The RSN ratings for soccer are likewise nothing like MLB, NBA, or even NHL ratings.
What is left is ST. A niche product that provides games produced by Fox and CBS, including their commercials, not shown on the local affiliates. Required to be sold at a premium price as to not cut too deeply into local affiliates. That is what is up for bids. If Apple wants more than that, it needs to deal with the rights owners, not the NFL.
What is happening here is pretty clear, if you understand the broadcasting business. The NFL would prefer to be in business with Apple because, one, the ST package cannot make money and must be predicated and Apple TV is far less “we already have that anyway” than Amazon, making ST more valuable to Apple than Amazon Two, because the NFL wants to be in business with “everybody” so there is no “out group” that can work against it. And, three, because Apple has the money to lose on this money losing package.
But Apple has figured out where its comfort zone is, and the NFL wants more than that. Of course, every one with bid was prepared to lose money, everyone who knows the first thing about the business understands that ST cannot make money on a cash basis, but Apple, like everybody else, has limits, and, before walking away, is taking a last stab at “thinking outside the box” by asking for things that have already been sold to the linear networks. Those are simply not for sale. The linear networks’ deals are about a thousand times more important to the NFL than ST.
Huh??????????? Vast majority...vast vast vast vast majority..watch NFL on their local OTA station...still OTA when its on cable or satelliteOTA is actually a very small part of the Television audience, only 15% of Households uses a Antenna, so out of 123 Million Households, a tad above 18 million.
While Live TV subscribers is at 68 million( includes all Live TV subs, including YTTV, Hulu Live, etc).
In 2013, Live TV had 100.5 million subs, they are now losing 2 million a quarter, as of now they are predicting it will be down to 57 million in 4 years.
Number of pay TV households in the U.S. 2028 | Statista
The number of traditional U.S. pay-TV households, including cable subscribers, was 58 million in 2023. A forecast suggests a drop to 41 million by 2028.
Streaming and OTA, costs I have no idea.
For a little while now, I've been thinking that the 4 major US broadcast networks will end up going back to their roots as free TV. But in the future, they won't be married to local broadcast station partners. Who needs OTA towers when you have the world wide web? So I think that by the end of this decade, we'll see the national feeds of ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox distributed inside those companies' FAST (free ad-supported TV) apps, e.g. CBS would live stream inside Paramount's Pluto TV. Now I don't think they'll include most of the live sports in those live streams -- to get that stuff, you'll need to subscribe to either their related SVOD (in the case of CBS, Paramount+) or to another streamer who holds the streaming rights. And if you want to watch more than the last couple episodes of network shows on-demand, you'd need the SVOD too.The NFL should be worried about the future of OTA Fox and CBS. That is their cash cow. Of course, broadcast networks needs sports, that’s some of their most watched shows.
What will the broadcast networks look like in 10 years when the time comes to renew their current contracts?
2021 Broadcast TV Ratings See Huge Drop from 2015 Viewership
One of the most important demographics in entertainment viewership is the 18-49 age range. This is seen as the target audience for, well, just about
I remember reading an industry insider's comment a few years ago, something like "Folks don't realize that about the only thing holding the current broadcast TV system in place is the NFL." After the current NFL contract ends in the early 30s, that may be the end of OTA TV. The next round of contracts will be exclusively with the major surviving SVODs, e.g. Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV+, and maybe one more (e.g. Universal+). The NFL will ensure that a limited number of games are available to stream free too, either via their own app and/or one or more FASTs.
A decade from now, US broadband availability should be about as ubiquitous as electricity by that point. Everything will stream over the internet, either free or subscription. It will make more sense to take most of the spectrum currently used for OTA TV and just convert it into wireless 6G. Local news operations will have to figure out a business model that doesn't rely on money from cable TV subscriptions, because that will have ceased to exist. I doubt all current local news operations can survive as free ad-supported services but at least one or two per market should be able to survive. Perhaps Congress/FCC will mandate that local news feeds be pre-installed and prominently featured in smart TVs' home screen UIs to ensure their discoverability and viewership.
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Again, DirecTV only has 10-11 million subscribers ( and shrinking), broadband is now in 85% of Households in the United States ( based on the 2020 Census), that is over 104 Million.
Which number is better?
Yep, time for more math, it has been written that 2 million sub to ST, so we will say 15% are from rural areas that cannot get broadband, that is only 300,000, total revenue of $90 million.
Now Apple/Amazon/whoever will have a lot more subscribers opened up to them when it goes broadband only, about 90 million more homes then DirecTV has, how many will subscribe is a unknown, but it will be more then the 300,000 that cannot get it.
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He kept writing OTA, but as you must of noticed, I included Paid Live TV.
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OTA is actually a very small part of the Television audience, only 15% of Households uses a Antenna, so out of 123 Million Households, a tad above 18 million.
While Live TV subscribers is at 68 million( includes all Live TV subs, including YTTV, Hulu Live, etc).
In 2013, Live TV had 100.5 million subs, they are now losing 2 million a quarter, as of now they are predicting it will be down to 57 million in 4 years.
Number of pay TV households in the U.S. 2028 | Statista
The number of traditional U.S. pay-TV households, including cable subscribers, was 58 million in 2023. A forecast suggests a drop to 41 million by 2028.
Maybe this is a semantic issue, but when I think of OTA, this is my model…
Content producer => Network => Local affiliate => distribution (OTA/cable/Satellite /vMVPD) => Viewer.
Cable network:
Content producer => Network => distribution (Cable/Satellite/vMVPD) => Viewer.
DTC OTTP Streaming changes that model to this:
Content producer => (cloud, whatever this is) => viewer.
I think what you call live TV, I call OTA. Heck, don’t most cable companies/satellite/vMVPD just get the local OTA signals from an antenna and redistribute them through their system?
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We all know what Market Cap is, so go ahead, what is the NFL worth in total, harder to figure out since they are not on the stock market, so you have to go by how much each team is worth, which I did.
Here-
Collectively, the value of NFL franchises, including team-related businesses and real estate held by owners, is $132 billion. The Dallas Cowboys are the most valuable franchise in football and across all of sports at $7.64 billion, $630 million ahead of MLB's Yankees.
I wrote, maybe worth $150-200 Billion in total to to create some buffer room.
Apple’s is over $2 Trillion, hit $3 Trillion before the downturn in the markets.
NFL Team Valuations 2022: Cowboys Rule at $7.6B as Average Tops $4B
NFL owners will gather in Minnesota next week to vote on adding a new member to their exclusive club. In June, Walmart heir Rob Walton agreed to pay $4.65 billion for the Denver Broncos, and approv…
www.sportico.com
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Yep. (Well, isn't the new NFL contract actually through like 2032?) Anyhow, I think the closest possible thing that Apple could get in US sports to their groundbreaking MLS deal would be to strike up a partnership with MLB or the NBA if/when the current RSN model (largely locked up by the flailing Sinclair/Bally Sports) falls apart. And that could happen next year.
What I've anticipated happening there, particularly for MLB, is that the league itself would just take over distribution of all those in-market games. Except for those teams who opt out, they'd sell their in-market games inside the same MLB.tv app where they sell all the out-of-market games. And they'd also need to offer some kind of linear channel feed too for MVPDs (e.g. MLB.tv Atlanta Braves Network).
But imagine instead that MLB.tv was replaced by an Apple TV MLB service, distributed via the Apple TV app as a separate package, just as their MLS service will be. I don't know if MLB would want to partner with Apple that way or not. Maybe?
I'd say the chances might be even higher for the NBA. Imagine if they shut down the streaming version of their NBA League Pass out-of-market package and struck a deal to include non-nationally-televised in-market and out-of-market games via an Apple TV NBA service. And maybe it would include all international streaming rights too. You could watch any team, anywhere in the world. Subscribe to just one team or to the entire league.
Something like that is the closest the Apple would be able to get to the MLS deal. That one is really great because there are zero blackouts. That can't happen with MLB and NBA because a fair number of games aren't carried by the RSNs but rather air/stream nationally via outlets like ESPN, Fox, TNT, Peacock, and of course Apple TV+ (Friday Night Baseball). And then the playoffs and championships are also already spoken for. Although I don't know if international rights for any of those games are already tied up or not. So maybe those could be included for non-US Apple TV subscribers.
I'd include the NHL as an option here too except for the fact that their out-of-market RSN games are already committed to ESPN+ until the 27-28 season. So all Apple could get there would be the local in-market games, which probably doesn't interest them.
Not really..those who wanted Sunday Ticket..had it...if millions were underserved..there would be a contract
The don't need Apple, but Apple was reportedly the only bidder willing to pay what the NFL was hoping to get. If that deal falls apart and the NFL has to turn to the #2 bidder (presumably Amazon) then they might not get as much as they were hoping to get.
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