Everyone thinks Apple’s negotiations with the NFL are dragging on

While Apple’s nonetheless the “front-runner” in relation to securing the rights to the NFL Sunday Ticket, negotiations are taking unexpectedly lengthy. That’s in keeping with a report from The Athletic (via 9to5Mac), which signifies issues have slowed down as a result of Apple could also be trying to rating the rights to extra than simply the soccer video games.

The rights to NFL Sunday Ticket — which DirecTV has held for practically three a long time — expire after this soccer season. Amazon, YouTube, and Disney are additionally stated to have positioned bids to safe the rights to the out-of-market video games bundle, which the NFL reportedly needs $3.5 billion for.

But The Athletic reviews that Apple anticipated it will acquire the rights to features not particularly talked about in its contract with the NFL. “You have to think about… the technology that has never even been invented… ways people want to consume that have never been invented yet,” an individual near the NFL advised The Athletic.

There’s additionally the opportunity of buying streaming tech from the NFL, too. Last December, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told the Sports Business Journal that the NFL is “months away, not days away” from promoting a stake in NFL Media, which incorporates RedZone, the NFL web site, and NFL Network. At the time, Goodell appeared not sure about bundling Sunday Ticket with the media asset sale.

“That’s the thing that’s probably going to influence the timing a little bit more,” Goodell advised the SBJ. “There’s so much interest, you’ve got to figure out: Do you want to include this in a relationship or do you want to exclude that and keep it over here for another partner? I think that’s part of the issue we’re going through.” In March, a report from Front Office Sports indicated that Apple’s trying to wrap Sunday Ticket and a stake in NFL Media in a single single billion-dollar deal.

As famous by The Athletic, Apple might be contemplating a number of the limitations that come together with NFL Sunday Ticket as properly. For one, Apple can’t stream the video games internationally and received’t have entry to in-market video games, like CBS and Fox does. This aligns with a CNBC report from October, which signifies that Apple needs to “offer consumers more than standard rights agreements,” together with the flexibility to supply “games globally or in local markets.”