A Bank of America note says the NFL is the key reason cable bundles haven’t disappeared, and analysts are sounding the alarm, according to a report from Front Office Sports. Rising rights costs are putting major broadcasters under pressure, and the league’s games are basically “glue” that holds traditional TV together.
Per the report, Bank of America calls NFL games “the glue” for linear TV because they drive massive advertising dollars, retransmission fees, and even streaming subscriptions. The analysts warned that an accelerated rights negotiation would put enormous financial pressure on Comcast, Disney, Fox, and others. The FOS piece points out that the collective cost for the big rights holders is already sizable, with roughly $9 billion going to core broadcasters for NFL rights.
Fox’s exposure and the stakes in negotiations
Fox, in particular, is exposed if rights costs rise faster than revenue, the analysts say. According to the report, BofA downgraded Fox from “buy” to “underperform” and said the company is unusually reliant on NFL games to support its business.
“It is our view that an accelerated NFL media rights negotiation would immediately place financial and strategic pressure on Fox,” they wrote, per FOS.
During a Q2 earnings call earlier this month, Jessica Reif Ehrlich, Managing Director at BofA Securities, asked how Fox will absorb the looming jump in NFL rights costs and what new revenue streams the company sees in the next contract.
Lachlan Murdoch, Fox Corp.’s executive chair and CEO, responded:
“Again, without speculating, we have the ability to offset a portion of any kind of cost increases because we look at our Sports portfolio as a whole, so we would certainly consider balancing or rebalancing our portfolio as we move forward when those opportunities become available. So we feel pretty comfortable about the Sports business as we move forward.”
Beyond the NFL, the FOX Sports portfolio is anchored by MLB, NASCAR, MLS, and major soccer tournaments (including World Cup 2026), and top college basketball and football conferences.
Opt-outs, rights windows, digital experiments, and international growth
This comes at a time when the NFL is expected opt out of its current 11-year, $111 billion rights deal as early as the conclusion of the 2029-30 season. If the league triggers its opt‑out clause, it can walk away from its deals with NBCUniversal, Paramount, Amazon, and Fox, while Disney remains locked in for one additional year.
If the NFL presses for higher fees or negotiates directly for streaming-first packages, traditional bundle economics get shakier. Networks that pay more for fewer rights can pass costs to pay-TV bundles or retreat from expensive rights altogether, making some local and cable bundles less attractive.
The NFL has continued to expand its presence in the digital space over the past few seasons. YouTube has signaled it wants to air more NFL games after a successful test last season. In 2025, YouTube streamed an exclusive Week 1 game in Brazil that drew big global audiences, and company execs have publicly indicated interest in expanding NFL rights beyond Sunday Ticket.
For the upcoming season, the NFL has aggressively expanded its international slate, with games in Madrid, Munich, Rio, Melbourne, and more. With talks of an 18-game season, the league hasn’t ruled out selling a rights package for international games and making those contests a weekly fixture. As the league continues to venture into the digital frontier, it has shown a willingness to experiment by placing some international matchups on streaming and using non-traditional windows to grow reach.
For 2027, Disney is going to the Super Bowl, with ESPN’s first broadcast of the Big Game. Next year’s game at SoFi Stadium will be the first Super Bowl after Disney’s deal with the NFL, where the league took an equity stake in ESPN, and ESPN gained control of NFL Network and RedZone. Even as the NFL continues to prop up the cable bundle, research finds that a large segment of sports fans have already gone digital‑only. The fragmentation has led many cord cutters to subscribe to various apps, yet with the Disney deal, more NFL content is coming to ESPN Unlimited, centralizing more football under one roof.
The BofA analysis shows that the NFL operates at a scale that still allows it to extract maximum value from the traditional cable bundle, at least for now. That leverage is why the league remains cable’s last true anchor and will likely continue to support it as long as it remains financially advantageous. At the same time, the NFL is actively evolving its media strategy with more streaming-exclusive games, possible international packages, and deeper platform partnerships. These moves show that pro football is clearly positioning itself for a future where distribution is more flexible, more centralized on digital platforms, and less tied to traditional pay-TV economics.
Credit: Front Office Sports