If DirecTV can’t work out a deal to extend it’s 20-year hammerlock on NFL Sunday Ticket, another satellite provider is ready to make a pitch for the package.
According to Todd Spangler of Variety.com, Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen recently said that his company would make an offer on the property, if it could.
Specifically, Ergen said Dish Network would “obviously be a bidder” for what he called “the most valuable content in the world.” But with the acquisition of DirecTV by AT&T hinging on the retention of Sunday Ticket, Ergen realizes that the door won’t be open.
“I think DirecTV, given the fact their merger [with AT&T] depends on it, the NFL has] to be confident they’re in the driver’s seat,” Ergen said.
That wrinkle gives the league so much power in the talks that the league doesn’t even need to conjure phony leverage by, for example, flirting with a competitor like Dish.
Still, if the package ever jumped from DirecTV to another provider, plenty of DirecTV customers would surely follow.