As reports continue to circulate regarding Apple’s interest in a deal for NFL Sunday Ticket, the NFL has officially announced its new NFL+ streaming service. The new NFL+ streaming service offers access to a number of NFL games exclusively on your iPhone and iPad, with some caveats.
The history (and future) of the streaming rights for NFL games is admittedly confusing. What’s now being offered via NFL+ was previously offered through an exclusive agreement between Verizon and the NFL. The deal between Verizon and the NFL allowed you to stream NFL games on your iPhone using the Yahoo! Sports app.
The deal between Verizon and the NFL has expired, and the NFL is taking what was once included in that agreement and breaking it out into its own direct-to-consumer streaming service.
NFL+ will cost $4.99 per month or $39.99 annually and offers access to live local and nationally broadcast games on phones and tablets; this means you can tune into local and primetime NFL games during the 2022-2023 season via your iPhone or iPad.
Here is everything included with NFL+:
- Live local and primetime games on mobile and tablet devices
- Live out-of-market preseason games across all devices
- Live game audio (home, away and national calls) for every game of the season
- NFL library programming on-demand, ad-free
There’s also an NFL+ Premium subscription:
- All features of NFL+
- Full game replays across devices (ad-free)
- Condensed game replays across devices (ad-free)
- Coaches Film (ad-free)
- $9.99/month or $79.99/year
The key here to remember is that NFL+ streaming is only supported on smartphones and tablets. You won’t be able to tune into games on your Apple TV, smart TV, or any other device that is not a smartphone or tablet.
Apple + NFL Sunday Ticket
What does this mean for NFL Sunday Ticket, the package for which Apple is reportedly planning to shell out billions of dollars?
Again, NFL Sunday Ticket and mobile streaming access to NFL games have coexisted for years. The mobile streaming rights were previously held by Verizon, but the NFL is now retaining those rights for NFL+.
NFL Sunday Ticket, on the other hand, is an out-of-market sports package that broadcasts regular season NFL games every week. This allows you to watch any out-of-market NFL game, whereas NFL+ only offers local and primetime NFL games (and only on a smartphone or tablet).
As it stands right now, Apple is believed to be the front-runner for rights to NFL Sunday Ticket; the NFL’s current deal with DirecTV expires after the 2022-2023 season. A report from The New York Times this weekend indicated that while Google has offered a bid for the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket, Apple is “considered the front-runner” at the moment.
Apple has made winning the package a priority. Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, has met with league officials and influential team owners like Jerry Jones, who owns the Dallas Cowboys, and the Kraft family, who own the New England Patriots, according to three people familiar with the process. Apple declined to comment.
It’s unclear when a deal for NFL Sunday Ticket will be announced, but given that the rights wouldn’t kick in until the 2023-2024 season, it could be a while.
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