Apple Reportedly 'Most Likely Winner' of NFL Sunday Ticket Rights, Considering Bid for UEFA Champions League Package
Rumors have been circulating about Apple bidding on the massive NFL Sunday Ticket package for out-of-market games, with a report just a few weeks ago stating that Apple, Amazon, and Disney were all in the running.
According to Dylan Byers at Puck News, Apple is now regarded as the "most likely winner" as Disney has dropped out of the bidding that could approach $3 billion per year.
As I learned at Sun Valley, and in subsequent conversations this week with sources close to the talks, the deal will likely come in significantly higher than $2 billion a year—some sources with insight into the talks believe it could come in close to $3 billion. This has effectively removed the cautious, ever-disciplined Disney from consideration, since its own bid came in under $2 billion. (Disney declined to comment.) Existing media partners, like Fox, Comcast and CBS, are also not in contention, I’m told. The race for the Ticket has therefore come down to Apple and Amazon, and while nothing has been signed or agreed to, I have been given ample reason to believe that Apple is the most likely winner of the sweepstakes—and not merely because I was told that Apple’s Tim Cook and Eddy Cue met with Goodell in Sun Valley.
Byers says that Apple and Amazon are also considering bids for a domestic package of UEFA Champions League games that could cost up to $2.5 billion over six years.
Apple has just begun dipping its toes into the live sports market, starting with a limited package of Friday night Major League Baseball games this season, and recently announcing a 10-year deal with Major League Soccer for worldwide broadcast rights to all games, but it's clear the company has significant ambitions as it seeks to increase its presence in the competitive market.
Popular Stories
The iMessage service that Apple users to send messages to one another appears to be down for some users, and messages are failing to go out or are taking an extra long time to send. There are numerous reports about the issue on social networks and a spike of outage reports on Down Detector, but Apple's System Status page is not yet reporting an outage. Update: Apple's status page says...
There are concerning reports on Reddit that Apple's latest iOS 17.5 update has introduced a bug that causes old photos that were deleted – in some cases years ago – to reappear in users' photo libraries. After updating their iPhone, one user said they were shocked to find old NSFW photos that they deleted in 2021 suddenly showing up in photos marked as recently uploaded to iCloud. Other...
This year's upcoming iPhone 16 Pro Max is expected to get a boost in overall size from 6.7-inches to 6.9-inches, and a new image gives us a good idea of how the current iPhone 15 Pro Max compares to what could be Apple's largest ever iPhone. The image above, posted on X by ZONEofTECH, shows a dummy model representing the iPhone 16 Pro Max alongside an actual iPhone 15 Pro Max. Dummy...
A bug in iOS 17.5 is apparently causing photos that have been deleted to reappear, and the issue seems to impact even iPhones and iPads that have been erased and sold off to other people. A Reddit user wiped an iPad following Apple's guidelines in September of 2023 before selling it off to a friend. That friend updated the iPad to iPadOS 17.5 this week, and began seeing the Reddit user's old ...
Some new M4 iPad Pro models are exhibiting a visible static grain pattern across the OLED display, according to several user reports on Reddit (1, 2, 3) and the MacRumors Forums. Image credit: MacRumors user bk215 Users who see the grain generally report that it is most noticeable in dark environments with the display set at a low to medium brightness while viewing content with gray or muted...
In April, Apple updated its guidelines to allow retro game emulators on the App Store, and several popular emulators have already been released. The emulators released so far allow iPhone users to play games released for older consoles from Nintendo, Sony, SEGA, Atari, and others. A list of some popular emulators available on the App Store so far follows. Released Delta Delta is...
Top Rated Comments
Right now I pay $30 per month for Apple One Premium. I will gladly pay $10 extra for both. Heck, I can pay $15!
Makes sense to not bloat the monthly fee of ATV+ with sports content that many people don’t want.
I’d like to see Apple One subscribers get a discount on the channels though, and maybe Premier subscribers get Champions League for free.
Though my guess is:
MLS: $10/month or $80/yr
NFL: $300/yr or $75/month
UEFA: $5/month
Let’s see if they can grab the NBA in a couple years.