Executives at the National Football League (NFL) are holding advanced discussions with their counterparts at Google-owned YouTube for a five-game package that could debut as soon as this upcoming season, according to a report published on Thursday.
The report, from Front Office Sports, says the NFL has not finalized its deal with YouTube, but that the discussions have “entered a long-form contract review,” which indicates that a deal is “likely to happen.”
The NFL and YouTube have not commented on the report.
The discussions come amid a shuffle in TV rights largely affecting the Walt Disney Company’s sports network ESPN, which acquired NFL Media and its NFL Network in February. As part of that deal, ESPN absorbed a few games that were intended to air on NFL Network and gave up its “Monday Night Football” double-header events, which freed up several games for the league to distribute through other partners.
The league is also interested in triggering a clause in its current long-term media rights deal that allows it to renegotiate certain terms with its broadcast partners, according to reports. NFL executives are hoping to squeeze more money out of broadcast networks or ink higher-priced streaming deals after seeing competing leagues like Major League Baseball (MLB) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) ink multi-billion dollar deals with Comcast, ESPN, Netflix, Amazon’s Prime Video and other platforms over the past few years.
The NFL and YouTube have enjoyed a lengthy partnership: The league currently sells its NFL Sunday Ticket package exclusively through YouTube Primetime Channels and YouTube TV, and YouTube clinched the worldwide rights to a Week 1 NFL game last season. The partnership also extends to creator-driven content, with YouTube influencers allowed to produce short-form videos and clips from NFL events.
The NFL’s other streaming deals include one-off arrangements with Amazon’s Prime Video and Netflix for holiday football games, rights to “Thursday Night Football” on Prime Video and international distribution agreements with DAZN.
The report of the NFL’s interest in distributing more games via YouTube comes as federal regulators weigh whether the league’s exemption to antitrust laws includes deals made with streaming services.
Under the Sports Broadcasting Act passed in the early 1960s, the NFL and other sports leagues are allowed to pool their broadcast rights packages from local teams and negotiate them en masse with broadcast and cable networks.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is currently probing whether the antitrust exemption also applies to streaming services, in light of complaints from lawmakers and fans that streaming arrangements has resulted in a pay-per-view arrangement involving games that were previously available on free broadcast TV and traditional platforms like cable and satellite.
