Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple May Have Already Inked Deal for NFL Sunday Ticket
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
No, if this happens, Apple is not going to throw in 'NFL Sunday Ticket' with AppleTV+ for $4.99/month.
You’d think they’d bundle with One and use this as enticement to bolster service sales. Or maybe there a more expensive tower. One+ Max? Maybe Apple would sell this as a separate, one off service? Is that what they do with Friday Night Baseball or is it bundled with One?
Although you won't find anywhere close to fan base as the US, there are more NFL fans around the world than you'd think. I live in Asia and as soon as my wife's coworkers found out she's married to an American, NFL fans came out of the woodwork chatting with her and asking questions about whether I watch too. And this in a country where it's virtually impossible to watch a game live (unless you stay up to an ungodly hour).
Oh man I hope this is true. And if it turned out to be included with a TV+ subscription with no additonal fee I’d over the moon (if available to Canadian customers).
Agreed. They’re going to capitalize on charging more, simply because they can and it has loads of money to be had with the extreme popularity of the NFL.
Not that I buy this but, if we now have to stream games and can no longer watch them on television, it will definitely suck. For as "relevant" as streaming is for some, television is still far more stable and less glitchy.
would be good if they actually record and broadcast/stream in 4K. That would be really exciting!
Last edited:
The right phrase should be "Meanwhile in the rest of the world", no one cares about NFL :-D
Oh wow, that's pretty big. And you can easily justify the $4.99/month price of Apple TV+ if you're a big football fan.
I agree about the baseball broadcasts, but with NFL Sunday Ticket they'd simply just broadcast the existing feeds from local markets. So no original apple production or commentary. It would be like how MLB.TV works now.
As for the Friday night baseball broadcasts, the quality is great. They just need better talent. Bob Costas would be a wonderful addition to the broadcast booth. If they're looking for a woman, Jessica Mendoza can be part of it. She left her role at ESPN.
Last edited:
Not happening. Rights to Sunday Ticket is multi-billion dollars per year. Noway Apple would give this for free. Just hope for a cheaper price than now.
Well, I'm European and I do care about the NFL, very much, way more than soccer.
I watched the USFL's highlights on YouTube, I've seen some good plays by the wide receivers, but most of those good plays were the result of bad coverage and the quarterbacks having all the time in the world to throw the ball, but I've also seen some pretty sloppy QBs and horrendous kickers and punters. I've also seen the refs being somewhat more lax when it comes to hits, except on the QBs.
People that don't like the sport might be put off by hits, especially people who regularly watch soccer as soccer players are extremely protected and extremely prone to acting like they've been simultaneously hit by Tyson and the Klitschko brothers any time they're touched, but they might become interested if they see more big plays and less stoppage, you really need to love football to sit through a whole NFL game.
I think that the problems with those leagues is that the American public is so used to the crazy high level provided by the NFL and people just lose interest when they see lower quality games - I don't know about college football because I don't watch it -, but keep in mind that USFL and XFL players are players that couldn't make it to the NFL, so of course they're not as good.
Outside of the US and Canada they have Game Pass International, with some blackouts in Mexico and the UK I think, but you can watch any game you want live and on demand, you get every game from every season, NFL films, shorter or longer highlights; I took advantage of their 0,99€ offer for 1 month, just to watch the Super Bowl on demand, I'm considering buying the whole season, but I don't know how much sense it makes because, except for the Sunday afternoon games, it would be impossible for me to watch any other game live, maybe only the first half of Thursday games, because of time zones, when the big games are on, here it's the middle of the night.
Game Pass International is a digital subscription, so you can watch it on many devices, I know that some people try to circumvent the geo restriction using VPNs, but I don't know what service - or services - is actually effective, as many providers end up blocking VPN services' IP ranges and outright lock you out when they detect a VPN.
Meanwhile in Germany and the UK, they actually kind of do care about the NFL. I’m not saying it’s the most popular sport in those countries (obviously not), but it’s been developing quite a following there for many years now. Germany is hosting a regular season NFL game this upcoming season in Munich. And the UK will be hosting three regular season NFL games this upcoming season as well.
Dunno, a quick google suggest that these are "regular" games that are kinda leftover from other more lucrative deals.
Amazon on the other side does include ChampionsLeague games with the normal subscription. Mind you not big elimination rounds and not even all the group games, but noone should expect Apple to get the SuperBowl anytime soon.
So yeah, not the playoffs, not the superbowl and most likely missing the big ticket games even during regular season.
At least thats how I read it and as such they should be of similar value as the CL games one can watch on prime.
NFL Sunday Ticket is all the regular season out-of-market games on Sunday (not including the “Sunday Night Football” game on NBC). Out-of-market meaning you cannot watch the local market games (example: Colorado NFL Sunday Ticket subscribers cannot watch Denver Broncos games using NFL Sunday Ticket), but you can watch everything else outside of your local market.
Last edited:
I suppose this will mean next to nothing for Apple customers outside the US? I'm on the Apple One Family Plan and we have two Apple TV 4K Gen.2 in our apartment, iPhones etc.
I've started to show interest in NFL. I've watched the Super Bowl the past three years, never live as I'm getting too old to wreck my sleep schedule for live sports I'm not that into being broadcasted in the middle of the night in my local time. Getting myself a team that I watch regularly would be interesting. Would have to be an on-demand stream, of course, watching live on a regular basis in the middle of the night is not going to happen.
Currently, this is impossible. Watching the Super Bowl is a struggle. Viaplay is the only service with the rights to NFL in my country and their broadcasts aren't all that great. This year I tried to use YouTube TV for the Super Bowl and it was so difficult to bypass all the region locks that I simply have up and used torrents to grab 1080P stream in full quality.
Torrenting individual games is not something I would like to do. I prefer to pay for the content I enjoy and consume. And Viaplay doesn't have great access to regular games, unless I opt to follow one of the most popular teams I won't have access to much of anything really. So the only option available for me through legitimate ways doesn't offer anything close to a decent service.
I was hoping this might change things? But Apple is only acquiring the rights for streaming NFL within the US so it will do jack all for any of us outside the US? It's beyond me why sports are doing license distribution in such a terrible way. Is it just as difficult for people in the US to watch soccer like the European Champions League and England's Premier League?
I've started to show interest in NFL. I've watched the Super Bowl the past three years, never live as I'm getting too old to wreck my sleep schedule for live sports I'm not that into being broadcasted in the middle of the night in my local time. Getting myself a team that I watch regularly would be interesting. Would have to be an on-demand stream, of course, watching live on a regular basis in the middle of the night is not going to happen.
Currently, this is impossible. Watching the Super Bowl is a struggle. Viaplay is the only service with the rights to NFL in my country and their broadcasts aren't all that great. This year I tried to use YouTube TV for the Super Bowl and it was so difficult to bypass all the region locks that I simply have up and used torrents to grab 1080P stream in full quality.
Torrenting individual games is not something I would like to do. I prefer to pay for the content I enjoy and consume. And Viaplay doesn't have great access to regular games, unless I opt to follow one of the most popular teams I won't have access to much of anything really. So the only option available for me through legitimate ways doesn't offer anything close to a decent service.
I was hoping this might change things? But Apple is only acquiring the rights for streaming NFL within the US so it will do jack all for any of us outside the US? It's beyond me why sports are doing license distribution in such a terrible way. Is it just as difficult for people in the US to watch soccer like the European Champions League and England's Premier League?