No US football on Apple TV+?
While she was considered the favorite in this class, Apple would have withdrawnnot seeing not logic
to pay between 2.5 and 3 billion dollars to broadcast Sunday evening games. Indeed, it did not share the same expectations as the NFL.
A priori, Cupertino would have been cooled by certain constraints in the deal, such as the impossibility of broadcasting matches internationally. In fact, with a view to development, it would have had the project of including the NFL Sunday Ticket in their Apple TV+ subscription, at no additional cost. For its part, the NFL wants an additional minimum subscription, so as not to compete with its existing broadcasting agreements with CBS and Fox.
An emerging horizon for Amazon and YouTube
Still, the road is clear for Amazon or YouTube, or even to a lesser extent ESPN, to recover this huge market.. Amazon Prime Vido is already streaming the Thursday night football, while YouTube offers many sports disciplines. It remains to be seen how much each would be ready to invest to recover these rights and whether the 2.5/3 billion mentioned are still relevant.
Sport remains a priority for Apple. This summer, she had been interested in the college sports-oriented Big Ten Conference. But this is a small segment, with spectators especially across the Atlantic. This brings together fourteen universities in the Midwest of the United States – covers eighteen sports disciplines : US football, soccer, baseball, golf, field or ice hockey, gymnastics, tennis.
In the meantime, Apple has already signed contracts with Major League Baseball (MLB) and Friday Night Baseball (two games every Friday), as well as Major League Soccer, to which it holds the rights for the next 10 years (2023 -2033). And then in view of Tim Cook’s last tweet, we could hope to have football broadcasts!
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