While the current contract for Sunday Ticket runs through 2022, the future of the NFL Sunday Ticket is up in the air. Earlier this summer, Disney once again expressed interest in acquiring streaming rights to Sunday Ticket. Today, reports say that Apple is also showing interest.
The Information reports that Apple is in early talks with the NFL for Sunday Ticket, with sources saying that Apple is interested in using rights to the package of games as a way to grow Apple TV+.
Disney CEO Bob Chapek recently shared during the company’s quarterly earnings call that his company is also “in conversations” with the NFL, noting that the company would only pursue the deal if they found it made financial sense.
In 2014, DirecTV extended its contract with the NFL to keep rights to the Sunday Ticket package. At that time, sources said the company would pay $1.5 billion per year for Sunday Tick, according to a report from Reuters.
We’ve known for over a year that several big names have been looking into bringing Sunday Ticket to streaming as we reported back in February 2020 that Amazon, Apple, and Google were all showing interest. At that time, Bob Iger, former CEO of Disney, had already expressed interest in bringing Sunday games to ESPN+ as well.
A move to any of the platforms that have shown interest so far could be good news for cord cutters. Not only is DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket restrictive in its pricing at $300-400, but it requires users to have DirecTV or meet specific requirements to qualify for a subscription.