Will NBC lose ‘Sunday Night Football’ to a streamer?
Will NBC lose ‘Sunday Night Football’ to a streamer?
New analysis indicates that NBC is at greatest risk of losing its Sunday NFL package.
The NFL is passing the hat around to see how much more it can get out of its current media partners, and conventional wisdom suggests that all will eventually pay the league’s new asking price in the name of extra security. But are any current NFL partners at risk of losing their package of games in negotiations? According to MoffettNathanson’s Michael Nathanson, NBC is the outlet in most danger of losing its game package to a streaming service.
Key Details:
- Sunday Night streaming?: NBC is the NFL partner most at risk of losing its package in negotiations with the league.
- Not for you: Political pushback against more games on streaming may not help Comcast CEO, Brian Roberts.
- Tough position: The money that NBCU is spending on NBA rights might make NFL negotiations tricky.
Nathanson sat down with John Ourand of Puck News to discuss the state of pending NFL rights negotiations. The league has offered current partners a deal: agree to pay more for NFL broadcast packages now, and the league will waive the 2029 opt-out clause in its current contracts that would send its rights to the open market in three years.
Talks started with CBS first, and word is the NFL is seeking a 50% annual increase in fee payments in its new round of negotiations. Nathanson says that, under those circumstances, NBCUniversal is the most likely entity to give up its package of games, rather than pay the NFL’s new rates. NBCU currently owns the “Sunday Night Football” package, which frequently features the best game of the week.
“Look at what NBC is paying for the NBA [$2.5 billion annually]. Now imagine what the NFL wants for ‘Sunday Night Football,’ which is the best game,” Nathanson said. “What’s stopping Netflix, which wants more events, to get Sunday night’s best game for 18 straight weeks? That would accelerate its ability to monetize ads. So, to me, the NBC Sunday night game is probably the most at risk.
Ourand also brought up YouTube, as well as Amazon’s streamer Prime Video, as platforms with deep pockets that may be able to offer the NFL a jaw-dropping amount of money to steal the package away. Streamers have been actively keeping an eye on the NFL in its new round of negotiations, and the league wants to sell a larger inventory of games to streaming platforms in this round of talks.
There has been stiff resistance to that notion from Washington, however. The Department of Justice is investigating the NFL for possible anticompetitive practices related to how it negotiates rights deals, and the pressure to do so is being generated by CBS and Fox, key linear partners of the NFL. Both channels are owned by political allies of President Trump, whose administration has been active in decrying the idea of selling more games to streamers.
But Nathanson suggests that because Brian Roberts, CEO of NBC’s parent company Comcast, has long found himself at odds with the president, the power of the federal government is less likely to be exerted to help NBC keep “Sunday Night Football.” Such uneven application of the law would no doubt horrify media ethicists, but it is nevertheless possible.
The NFL is negotiating its rights fee increases one partner at a time, so NBC’s turn will have to wait. But when it arrives, keep an eye on the channel; it may be outbid for “Sunday Night Football” by a streaming service, and if it is, it may not be able to count on political intervention.
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