Google has emerged seemingly out of nowhere, which is difficult for one of the biggest companies in the world as a leader to pick up NFL Sunday Ticket. According to the Wall Street Journal, Google would package the service, which lets users watch NFL football games from outside of their market, as part of YouTube TV (Like DirecTV does) but also sell it as a separate service on its own through its own recently debuted streaming marketplace (Primetime Channels).
There is no reporting on pricing. But here is betting that YouTube TV subscribers would get the NFL service at some type of discount (otherwise why offer it in two places).
The NFL is not interested in allowing companies to offer the service for a low price due to expectations from its network TV partners Fox, NBC, and CBS because it could cause too many customers in respective markets to eschew the local/regional game of the day for a game from another area. So our bet is that Google will price the service at a premium level on its own say $300.00 per year and sell it on what is the most popular streaming platform in the country while somehow being able to offer YouTube TV customers the difference, say 250 per year with the other benefits of its cable replacement service including of course the local broadcast channels and ESPN making YouTube TV the top sports streaming service in the world basically over-night.
Either way, the move would put Sunday Ticket into the hands of a company with seemingly endless money to pay for the rights and the ability to market it to every phone, TV and game console in the country, because everything has access to YouTube.
We will keep a close eye on this story.
