“Here’s an idea for what Apple should do with [a bit of] its $147 billion in cash: buy the digital rights to National Football League games,” David Goldman writes for CNNMoney.
“Apple already airs professional baseball, hockey and basketball games on the Apple TV. It also comes with the Watch ESPN app, which allows users to watch live tennis matches, golf tournaments and college football and basketball games aired on the Disney-owned sports giant. But in the United States, the NFL is the crown jewel,” Goldman writes. “Apple isn’t known for entering expensive, money-losing ventures. But there’s a chance it wouldn’t have to pay upwards of $1 billion for the deal [what DirectTV pays now, through next season]. For the exclusive mobile rights to NFL games, Verizon pays about a quarter of what DirecTV pays.”
Gosdman writes, “If Google bought the NFL rights [for the company’s YouTube], it’s possible that Apple TV users would still be able to watch football games via the YouTube app. But so could users of Roku, Microsoft’s Xbox, Sony’s PlayStation and so on. But if Apple won exclusive rights, it seems a good bet that Apple would sell many more of those $99 Apple TV set-top boxes. Well, in the United States anyway — the NFL hasn’t taken off in other countries that play the other [real] football.”
Read more in the full article here.