Tech Giants Line Up For NFL Rights

(RTTNews) - Tech giants Amazon.com, YouTube and Twitter as well as Verizon Communications are exploring bids for digital streaming rights to the National Football League or NFL's Thursday Night Football package, according to media reports.

The NFL is likely to strike a multi-year deal for the digital streaming rights.

In early February, the NFL said it reached a deal with Fox Sports to broadcast on television the next five seasons of Thursday Night Football beginning with the 2018 season.

ESPN reported that NFL sold the television broadcast rights to Fox Sports for $3.3 billion, which is roughly $660 million per year over five years through 2022. This represents a nearly 47 percent premium over the $450 million NBC and CBS paid to broadcast 10 Thursday Night Football games in 2017.

However, the television audience for the NFL has declined for two consecutive years and fell almost 10 percent in the last season alone. The NFL is looking for a technology company to offer an interactive stream with social media commentary to appeal to young viewers.

Twitter had paid $10 million for the digital streaming rights from the NFL in 2016. In 2017, the NFL reached a deal with Amazon to stream 10 Thursday night games on its Amazon Prime service in a deal worth about $50 million.

Verizon, an existing NFL partner, already owns rights to air games on mobile devices. YouTube is the only company that has not had a streaming relationship earlier with the league.

ESPN parent Walt Disney Co., NBC owner Comcast Corp., CBS Corp. and Fox own all the major broadcast rights for NFL games. This will not change until at least 2021 or 2022, when rights for all the major games will come up for renewal.