sports rights

Comcast’s NBCUniversal is preparing to make a strong bid to win back National Basketball Association broadcast rights more than 20 years after the company lost them to Disney and Turner Sports, according to people familiar with the matter. NBCU executives have informed the NBA of their interest, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. NBC Sports wants a package that would include playoff games to air on NBC’s broadcast network, two of the people said. Some regular season games could be exclusive to NBCU’s streaming service, Peacock. The NBA could also decide to force media companies to simulcast all games on streaming to increase reach, the people said.

As Bally Sports struggles with financial difficulties, Major League Baseball is exploring all of its media options — including taking back local TV rights to 14 teams. At present, MLB would prefer to keep the status quo with Bally, which operates 19 regional sports networks across the U.S. But as Bally parent Diamond Sports — a unit of Sinclair Broadcast Group — spirals toward bankruptcy, time is running out, and MLB executives are preparing contingency plans.

The deal would mark one of the first major moves for the network since being acquired by Nexstar.

The U.S. Soccer Federation is switching its Spanish-language U.S. broadcasts to Telemundo from Univision. The USSF said Tuesday the agreement with Telemundo, a division of Comcast Corp.’s NBC Universal, runs through 2026. The first telecast will be the U.S. women’s exhibition at New Zealand on Wednesday (10 p.m. ET Tuesday) and all matches also will be streamed on Peacock.

Two former executives are accused of paying bribes to obtain broadcast rights, including for the World Cup. Testimony could reveal what the company knew.

The National Football League is in advanced talks to give Google’s YouTube exclusive rights to NFL Sunday Ticket, a subscription-only package that allows football fans to watch most Sunday afternoon games, people familiar with the matter said. An agreement could be reached as early as Wednesday, following a meeting of NFL owners, who approve rights deals.

Talks for Sunday Ticket are expected to spill into next year, as Apple faces increased competition from Google for the league’s last available TV rights.

Apple Inc. is building an advertising network for live television as part of its deal to stream Major League Soccer games next year, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The company is holding discussions with advertising partners and MLS sponsors in advance of the launch next February about airing advertisements during soccer games and related shows, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.

The deal, worth more than $2 billion that will keep the conference’s media rights in place through the 2030-31 college sports seasons, people familiar with the deal say.

HBCU Go, Allen Media Group’s streaming platform serving the Historically Black Colleges and Universities, said it reached a distribution agreement with the HBCU Basketball Association, a new professional league starting play in spring 2023. The agreement gives HBCU Go cable, linear, streaming, broadcast, VOD and pay-per-view rights to HBCU BA events.

The National Football League season is heading into Week 6, and it’s still unclear which company will become the new owner of Sunday Ticket rights — the only remaining exclusive broadcast package that hasn’t been renewed until 2030. But existing restrictions around Sunday Ticket have slowed negotiations between Apple and the NFL in recent months, according to people familiar with the matter. Talks between the league and potential buyers of Sunday Ticket are continuing, the people said.

LIV Golf has lured some of the world’s most famous golfers to its upstart golf league, but it is having a much more difficult time finding a major U.S. media partner to broadcast its tournaments. Amazon and Apple have both passed on the media rights to LIV Golf, people familiar with the matter said, leaving the Saudi-backed circuit with a dwindling number of options.

The upheaval going on in college sports that has seen multiple major schools switch conference allegiances is being driven almost entirely by a lust for TV dollars. The gulf between the haves and the have-nots created by the ocean of money in college sports is only going to get wider.

The Big Ten is on the cusp of television deals that are expected to pay it in excess of $1 billion and create a college football triple-header featuring Fox, CBS and NBC. If the agreement goes through, ESPN will be out of the business of Big Ten football and basketball for the first time in 40 years.

DirecTV is reportedly close to securing the rights from Amazon to show NFL Thursday Night Football in restaurants and bars. The news is a relief to establishment owners who claim streaming just doesn’t work in multi-TV environments because of latency issues.

Competing for rights to games from the NFL and other leagues could be hard for broadcast and cable companies that “aren’t playing by the same financial rules.” The tech companies’ interest is a thrill for sports leagues and a terror for media companies that fear competition from rivals that collect tens of billions of dollars from dominant positions in other businesses. Last year, sports accounted for 95 of the 100 most viewed programs on television.

The value of soccer in America is getting its next big test. The Union of European Football Associations will began soliciting bids for the U.S. TV rights to its Champions League matches this week and offers are expected to top $2 billion for a six-year deal, more than double what UEFA gets every year under current agreements, according to people familiar with the organization’s thinking.

In pursuit of money, universities and conferences are uprooting traditional rivalries and regional loyalties.

The decision by UCLA and USC to join the Big Ten further consolidates power within two college conferences and escalates the rivalry between their two biggest media partners, Fox and ESPN. The Big Ten said Thursday that the schools, which have large fan bases and famous histories in football and basketball, will join the conference in 2024. Their arrival will benefit Fox Corp., which owns 61% of the Big Ten Network through a joint venture and just renewed its deal with the conference.

In a huge coup for Amazon Prime Video, the streamer has scored rights to the Champions League in the U.K. for the first time, shared with BT (British Telecommunications). From the 2024-25 season, Amazon will show the big games on a Tuesday night through to the semifinals, amounting to around 20 games in total. BT, which has held the rights since 2015 when it took over from ITV and Sky, will continue showing both the Champions League and the smaller European football competitions, the Europa League and Europa Conference League.

The 10-year, $2.5 billion deal recently inked between Apple and Major League Soccer illustrates how tech giants recognize the opportunity that major sports rights bring to their streaming platforms, and their investments are disrupting the market.

The NFL is finding a new home for its Sunday Ticket package, and the bidding is down to two of the world’s largest tech companies and one of the world’s largest media conglomerates. Amazon, Apple and Disney are all vying for the out-of-market set, which the NFL reportedly wants to shift at least partly to a streaming property. The league is seeking $2.5 billion to $3 billion annually for Sunday Ticket.

F1 has agreed to renew its rights deal with ESPN through 2025, sources say. The three-year deal still doesn’t have a signed contract, but the racing series told Amazon and Comcast executives on Friday that neither company’s bid was going to be accepted. Sources say that ESPN has agreed to pay around $75-$90 million per year for the rights. Currently, ESPN pays in the neighborhood of $5 million per year for the rights, having signed a 3-year/$15 million deal in 2019.

Disney and India’s Reliance Industries have won the broadcasting rights for the Indian Premier League for more than $6 billion, making the Twenty20 cricket competition one of the most lucrative sports leagues in the world in terms of cost per game.

Netflix is said to be battling Amazon and Comcast/NBCU to unseat incumbent ESPN/Disney for a rights package that could exceed $100 million a year

Apple is about to take a, well, something out of the NFL’s rights portfolio. The tech behemoth reportedly has emerged as the favorite to land the NFL’s Sunday Ticket package, according to Matthew Belloni of PUCK.news, via Sports Business Journal. An unnamed source told Belloni that the deal is actually done, and that it’s being kept under wraps at Apple’s request.

Major League Soccer and Apple may soon be finalizing an agreement to bring the top domestic soccer league to Apple TV+, according to a report from Sam Stejskal, who broke the story on Twitter.

The NCAA championships package — which includes the women’s tournament and 28 other title events, though not the men’s tourney — expires in August 2024. That means the bidding process for whatever packages the NCAA decides to market would likely begin next fall.

The new streaming deal between Major League Baseball and Apple is worth $85 million annually over seven years, according to several sources familiar with the agreement who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the terms.

NBC Sports will televise USFL games along with Fox Sports when the pro football league returns in a new incarnation next spring. Starting in April, NBCUniversal will carry 21 USFL games in 2022, with eight on NBC, nine on USA Network and four on Peacock. Fox will have 22 games, 12 on its flagship broadcast network and 10 on cable’s FS1. The USFL’s 20 national over-the-air broadcast windows will exceed the number for any regularly scheduled sport in the first half of 2022, according to the league.

The Premier League announced the deal on Thursday. NBC will pay more than $2.7 billion to continue showing the world’s richest soccer competition. A person familiar with the deal told The Associated Press it almost triples the value of the U.S. English- and Spanish-language broadcast rights.

The English Premier League is nearing the sale of its U.S. television rights for about $2 billion, setting a new overseas record, the Financial Times reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.