Foot US: A 100 billion contract for the NFL
Posted
The National American Football League has sold the rights to its matches for the next ten years to TV stations and to Amazon.
The NFL has negotiated its rights particularly well.
AFP
The professional American football league NFL has entered into a gigantic 11-season television broadcast contract with several channels and the Amazon platform, which has secured exclusivity for the first time, according to a statement.
According to estimates from several US media, the overall value of this new agreement, which will take effect in 2023 until 2033, would exceed 100 billion dollars, a record in the history of the rights of the sport on television.
The NFL is committed simultaneously with ESPN and ABC (Disney group), CBS (ViacomCBS), Fox (Fox Corporation), NBC (NBCUniversal) and Amazon, which will each divide up the matches of this tight schedule, which will not has only 16 regular season games.
Double than usual
This is a very strong message sent to the media world and to the sports industry, when some have claimed for several years that the current amount of sports rights is overstated. The amount mentioned by the American media corresponds to approximately double what the NFL currently reports from the broadcasting of its meetings, as part of commitments made until 2022 inclusive.
Amazon, which first won NFL rights in 2017, retains the Thursday box but this time secured online exclusivity for the game, a first for a video-on-demand service. In general, the North American league, known for its reluctance, has chosen to push the fires in digital by dedicating a large part of the agreement to online broadcasting.
Stability assured
In addition to Amazon, the NFL has thus reached an agreement with its major partners so that its matches are broadcast live on their online platforms, namely Paramount + for CBS, ESPN + for ESPN, Peacock for NBC and Tubi for Fox.
« We are proud to expand our partnerships with the most innovative media groups in the market, » NFL operational boss Roger Goodell said in the statement.
With the new collective agreement recently signed between the league and the players’ union, « these distribution agreements will usher in an era of unprecedented stability for the league, » he added.
(AFP)
