Despite news that the NFL and RedBird Capital Partners are forming a joint venture that will hold exclusive rights to distribute the NFL Sunday Ticket to bars and restaurants in the U.S. starting this season, satellite TV provider DirecTV has indicated it’s still in play to deliver the football package at commercial establishments.
DirecTV was the long-time holder of residential NFL Sunday Ticket rights through last season, after which Google’s virtual MVPD YouTube TV in December snagged exclusive rights, with the package also available as an a la carte option on YouTube Primetime Channels. When DirecTV held Sunday Ticket rights (which it had since 1994) it distributed the package to commercial locations such as bars, restaurants and other venues.
However, this week the NFL and RedBird Capital announced the JV, dubbed EverPass Media, which is a new media platform created to hold rights and stream the games in those same types of locations – leaving a question as to whether DirecTV might be left out. That doesn’t appear to be the case as, in a statement provided to Fierce, the satellite provider said it’s already in discussions with RedBird.
“DIRECTV delivers market-leading sports content to bars, restaurants and other commercial establishments across the U.S. including exclusive access to MLS Season Pass and MLB Friday Night Baseball, as well as Thursday Night Football, with more games and leagues on the horizon,” said in a statement. “We are in discussions with RedBird Capital to deliver NFL Sunday Ticket to our 300,000+ commercial venues as only satellite can provide a consistent and reliable experience in-venues and across locations that fans have come to expect.”
As noted in the statement, DirecTV already has deals to distribute other professional sports games across more than 300,000 locations – most recently in February notching a deal to provide the MLS Season Pass that’s now offered by Apple TV. Prior to that, after Amazon scooped up exclusive Thursday Night Football rights for Prime Video, DirecTV secured a spot as the distributor for commercial locations under a multi-year deal.
As for the new joint venture, RedBird and the NFL said the multi-year license of out-of-market Sunday afternoon games to EverPass Media will provide access to the NFL Sunday Ticket to commercial businesses across the country. The announcement noted that going forward, the service will be available on a non-exclusive basis through all participating cable and satellite providers.
Heading up EverPass Media are veteran media executives Derek Chang, serving as executive chairman, and CEO Alex Kaplan. And plans for EverPass look to extend beyond NFL Sunday Ticket, with the partners saying it intends to grow the content offering and provide business with a broader premium live sports and entertainment service, both in the U.S. and globally.
“Our goal is to create a new model for commercial sports rights distribution around the globe, and we believe that this is just the beginning of an exciting journey," said Chang. "Creating a platform that allows commercial establishments to deliver the content that their customers desire is a significant opportunity and technology allows us to aggregate this content to a platform that can scale and evolve the viewing experience."