For 20 years, DirecTV has owned the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket. That number eventually could approach 30.
According to John Ourand and Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Journal, the NFL and DirecTV are on the verge of a long-term extension that will pay between $1.3 billion and $1.4 billion per year for the right to make out-of-market Sunday games available via satellite.
The deal is expected to run through 2021 or 2022. The current major national TV deals, which launched this season, all expire in 2022.
A formal announcement is not imminent, and no contract has been signed. Both sides declined comment.
The price potentially went up after reports emerged that AT&T’s proposed $39 billion purchase of DirecTV hinged on the NFL Sunday Ticket package staying put. That development necessarily gave the NFL some extra leverage in negotiations.
With the current deal at $1 billion per year, the new contract will pump $300 million to $400 million into the league’s pockets. Which in turn will further drive up the salary cap.
Which in turn will make some of these long-term player contracts look worse and worse as the current decade continues.