The National Football League and private-equity firm RedBird Capital Partners are creating a venture to stream NFL games and eventually other live sports and events to commercial establishments such as bars and restaurants, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Starting with the 2023-24 season, the new venture, named EverPass Media, will be the commercial distributor for the NFL’s Sunday Ticket, a subscription-only package popular with sports bars that gives access to all Sunday afternoon games for out-of-market teams, the NFL and RedBird said.
Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube last year struck a seven-year deal with the NFL for residential rights to Sunday Ticket in a deal valued at $2 billion annually, but it didn’t acquire the commercial rights. Satellite broadcaster DirecTV previously had held the commercial and residential rights for Sunday Ticket for nearly three decades.
The Sunday Ticket commercial rights fees have been valued at $200 million annually. In addition to the rights fee, the NFL’s investment arm, 32 Equity, will take a stake in EverPass Media, the parties said.
During negotiations with potential suitors for Sunday Ticket, the NFL decided it would be better to have a distributor devoted exclusively to commercial establishments—which display multiple games at once on various TV screens and are more in need of a wholesale provider than sports fans at home—according to Brian Rolapp, the NFL’s chief media and business officer. The platforms interested in Sunday Ticket didn’t have an established commercial footprint and expressed little interest in starting one from scratch, he said.
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