NFL Sunday Ticket is in its first season with YouTube TV after leaving its longtime home with DirecTV. An executive with the satellite provider shared that the company wasn’t all that sad to see the package leave.
YouTube TV inked a deal that pays the league a reported $2 billion per year for the package. DirecTV held the rights since 1994, but when the contract came up, had to decide whether or not it was interested in renewing.
In an interview with Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand, DirecTV Chief Content Officer Rob Thun was asked whether it was weird or not to no longer hold the rights.
“Well, we’re a billion dollars richer,” Thun admitted. “Let me ask you a question. ‘Do you like losing a billion dollars a year?’ That was the old deal. The new deal, it’d be a billion and a half. It didn’t make sense for our platform because … We’re losing subs because we’re a pure-play video provider and the price of content continues to escalate beyond what people are willing to pay.
“We were very data-driven about whether or not to pursue those rights. We didn’t even engage frankly in the conversation,” Thun said. “The only piece that we engaged upon was getting the commercial rights.”
While Thun claimed that the company attempted to secure the commercial rights, that package went to EverPass Media.
In its first season holding the package, YouTube TV has reported subscriptions to NFL Sunday Ticket are up from the previous numbers seen by DirecTV.
