Say what you want about Roger Goodell and the league office, but they sure know how to make money. The NFL has announced that it will partner with Google to bring Sunday Ticket, the NFL’s streaming service, to YouTube in a 7-year, $14B deal.
Unlike so many of the other streaming services of the companies that were in the bidding to pick up the out-of-market NFL games, such as Paramount’s (CBS) Paramount+, Comcast’s (NBC) Peacock, Amazon’s Amazon Prime, Apple’s Apple TV, and Disney’s ESPN+, lacked what YouTube offers a space for practically every single person alive: massive, unlimited variety of entertainment.
You’re a seven-year-old kid who likes like football and drawing? Well, you can watch as many drawing videos as you like from your favorite YouTube creators and then tune into YouTube TV to watch one of the dozen NFL games streaming.
You’re a native Cleveland 16-year-old who enjoys watching Vlogs from the lives of the most famous YouTubers/Influencers and is also a massive Dallas Cowboys? You now can watch both on the same platform.
Or what about you being a 50-year-old with three kids, a house, a dog, and likes to relax by learning the history of Medieval England and catching up on their beloved Seattle Seahawks and New York Giants? No problem as those three options are more than supported in this new deal.
YouTube already provides practically everything anyone could ever dream about from an entertainment point of view, and now the company can offer live stream NFL games without having to create some cheesy, tacky streaming service that nobody wants. Plus, this deal generates an even larger audience for the platform with the older generations who normally wouldn’t go on YouTube other than by accidentally pressing it on their smart T.V. remote when looking for the next NFL game.
Sure, the $14B price tag over the next seven years is rather high, but when you see that NFL games were 48/50 top rated shows, had the most collective minutes watched at 370 billion, and each game was watched by an average of 17.1 million people in just the year 2021 alone, you’ll see why Google took this chance.
Simply put, having 85% of all NFL games available to be streamed through YouTube TV (Sunday Ticket, CBS, FOX, and NBC are all streamable through the platform), not only makes YouTube TV the only place NFL fans will watch their streamed games, but also legitimatizes the streaming service amongst the Paramount+, Peacock, and Amazon Primes of the world.
As for the NFL, there’s 14 billion reasons why this deal was smart.
Not only has Roger Goodell and the league office now licensed out the NFL’s TV rights for over $100B for the next few years, but it has also cemented its way into the entertainment feed of the youth that watch YouTube. And that was the smartest business decision the NFL could have possible of made as the only way the league will survive and stay as popular is if it can enthrall the youths (5-10) of America more than the over major sports.
Which is exactly why the NFL choose Google and YouTube out of all the other competitors.
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