NFL to discuss live game rights with new media partners
The NFL plans to hold talks with non-traditional media companies to potentially sell the rights to a live game, NFL Media chief Hans Schroeder told CNBC Sport on Friday.
“We have other people who are partners, both in a smaller sense — maybe not the full package — or people who still want to be NFL live game partners somewhere in the media landscape,” Schroeder said in an interview from Radio Row ahead of Super Bowl LX in San Francisco.
“We will have these discussions,” he added. “We want to understand all of our options and how to think about the best model for ourselves, our fans and our teams going forward. So we’re going to listen to your question and there’s probably going to be a lot of different people who want to talk to us. That’s very fortunate. We say that humbly and we’re going to make sure we understand those conversations.”
Schroeder did not elaborate on which companies might be interested in purchasing a live game. NFL sells week one game YouTube It sold for nearly $100 million last season; This is a one-time strategy that can be replicated with other digital platforms. The community-wide shift to streaming has made digital a rival to broadcast television, which has long been the league’s preferred distribution strategy due to its reach.
“You’re now seeing these big digital platforms that can reach broadcast-level audiences,” Schroeder said. “This just creates more optionality.”
NFL and its traditional media partners — Disney, Paramount Global, comcastNBCUniversal and Amazon – It will likely begin discussing new media rights later this year, four years before the current deal’s opt-out clause, according to people familiar with the matter. Schroeder echoed NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s comments to CNBC in September that the league would be open to those talks.
“I’m sure they’re doing work on their side when the time comes, because they either want to kind of hit the ‘engagement’ button or the commissioner says, ‘Hey, let’s do this,'” Schroeder said.
NFL expanding The next season the number of international matches increased to nine; This is a record number. He said the league could sell a new package of some of those games to a media partner as soon as next year.
“That will be one of the things we will look at,” Schroeder said.
