YouTube was once a frontrunner for a new five-game NFL package this coming season. Now, according to Puck Media’s John Ourand, the streaming giant isn’t buying anything potentially over a single game being pulled from the package by the league.
What We Know: YouTube entered negotiations with the NFL on a new five-game slate for the upcoming season. Reporting says the package included four game windows ESPN relinquished as part of its NFL Network acquisition. It also included the Week 1 season opener in Melbourne, Australia. According to Ourand, the NFL then pulled the Australia game from YouTube’s portion of the package. The league expected YouTube to still split the remaining inventory with Netflix. Instead, YouTube walked away from the NFL completely. The move raised fresh questions about how aggressively the Google-owned platform — which already holds exclusive NFL Sunday Ticket rights through 2029 — truly wants to compete for live sports rights.
What They Said: An anonymous rights holder to Puck Media’ John Ourand regarding YouTube: “It’s such a laborious process whenever I pitch them. I really do believe that they’re genuinely just trying to figure out if they want to be in the live rights game or not.”
What Remains Unclear: It remains uncertain whether YouTube will re-engage the NFL on revised terms for next season. Furthermore, questions linger about YouTube’s long-term live rights strategy. The lone broadcast on YouTube last year of the Chargers-Chiefs NFL International Series game from Brazil saw an average U.S. audience of 18.5 million.
What It Means: Every streaming platform’s business model is different. However, YouTube is insistent on not having content behind paywalls. That’s the draw to the YouTube audience. Content for free and whenever I’d want it. YouTube doesn’t need sports rights to be successful. We’ve seen the growth of the platform with content discovery for podcasts. There is a brighter future there with less overhead costs associated to make profit. However, what these decisions could mean for the Sunday Ticket on the platform is a much larger question with more streaming platforms demanding NFL content.
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John Mamola is Barrett Media’s sports editor and daily sports columnist. He brings over two decades of experience (Chicago, Tampa/St Petersburg) in the broadcast industry with expertise in brand management, sales, promotions, producing, imaging, hosting, talent coaching, talent development, web development, social media strategy and design, video production, creative writing, partnership building, communication/networking with a long track record of growth and success. He is a five-time recognized top 20 program director in a major market via Barrett Medi’s Top 20 series and has been honored internally multiple times as station/brand of the year (Tampa, FL) and employee of the month (Tampa, FL) by iHeartMedia. Connect with John by email at John@BarrettMedia.com.
