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It seems as though a lot of people commenting here don't understand what Sunday Ticket is. I don't think Apple is going to come in and take all game production in house. Currently, Sunday Ticket simply rebroadcasts games produced by Fox and CBS, to out of market viewers who don't receive the games locally either over the air or through a TV provider. Fox and CBS have the over-the-air broadcast rights and Apple is not going to take those away from them if they win the rights to distribute Sunday Ticket. This has nothing to do with the two baseball games they produce every Friday.
 
Ugh. Such a waste of money for Apple. If there were that many people wanting to pay for this then the NFL would just do it themselves. It’s not like a streaming service is that hard to build these days.

I imagine Apple is thinking that this will bring in the bro dude market and get them to start paying for Apple’s services. And maybe they’re right. But it just feels dirty to me. Foot ball is literally the worst sport. The people who play it all go on to have traumatic brain injuries. It just feels very non-Apple.

Like here’s your elegantly designed device, a wide variety of music, a huge range of creatively designed third party apps… and a sport where people run into each other in a strategic manner while causing brain damage they’ll never recover from.

At least Soccer the players aren’t generally damaged for the rest of their lives. (Also foot ball is so boring to watch!)

(I also realize the Mac was literally launched with a super bowl ad. I just hate football it’s a dumb sport and quintessentially American. Because nobody from another country would think it was a good idea to professionally assault each other while not acknowledging it’s just a big fight with rules that make no sense.)
There is so, so much wrong with what you wrote. It’s not even worth entertaining. Please educate yourself before making yourself look ridiculous.
 
It seems as though a lot of people commenting here don't understand what Sunday Ticket is. I don't think Apple is going to come in and take all game production in house. Currently, Sunday Ticket simply rebroadcasts games produced by Fox and CBS, to out of market viewers who don't receive the games locally either over the air or through a TV provider. Fox and CBS have the over-the-air broadcast rights and Apple is not going to take those away from them if they win the rights to distribute Sunday Ticket. This has nothing to do with the two baseball games they produce every Friday.
Exactly. Apple isn’t bringing their own team into 16 games each week. They literally just show every game that’s on CBS and Fox across the country on Sundays.
 
Live sports in the US have become hard to watch due to relentless advertising. The format was already inundated with ads -- numerous lengthy commercial breaks, every stat/replay accompanied by the slogan of whichever sponsor is was "presented by", etc -- and in recent years, it's even worse. Now you get the on-uniform ads, the digitally superimposed pseudo-targeted ads on the field or ad boards around the perimeter, and my favorite, the picture-in-picture ads during the action -- because we wouldn't want the actual sport to interrupt an advertising opportunity, would we?

So true

The only thing that even keeps it remotely sane for me anymore is watching on a delay and skipping all the AD breaks.
That, of course, doesn't help with all the in-game/on field/in arena/on uniform ADs you mentioned, but it's at least a bit more pleasurable.

I have full confidence that we'll ruin all sports completely, eventually, by just trying to squeeze every single last cent of AD "value" out of every single nook and cranny that can be found.

Capitalistic greed eventually drives everything into the ditch
 
Maybe it's just the cynical me, I use to love watching sports. With the exception of hockey I couldn't care less about any of the major leagues here in the States.
I only care about sports mildly. And even then, that might be a stretch. I just like how when I got into SS, not being tied to sports content REALLY frees up numerous options that were still very affordable.

It doesn’t mean that at all.

As a matter fact of fact, it’s complete opposite to view AppleTV+. It’s entirely separate.
For the longest time, I ignored ATV+ because I just assumed you needed Apple hardware to use it. It wasn't until my iPad came with a free trial that I looked into this (was able to to stream through Firefox browser, on a Windows computer! :cool: )
 
Huh? Liverpool FC alone is worth 500 million. One club. 13 billion is nothing in kicking football.

Population of Liverpool: 500,000
Value of Liverpool FC: 0.5 Billion

Population of Green Bay, WI: 100,000
Value of Green Bay Packers: 3.5 Billion

Population of Buffalo, NY: 250,000
Value of Buffalo Bills: 2.27 Billion

Population of Cincinnati, OH: 300,000
Value of Cincinnati Bengals: 2.6 Billion

Population of Cleveland, OH: 370,000
Value of Cleveland Browns: 2.27 Billion

And those just are the "smaller" cities in the US. Not bad for "throwing football"
 
Sunday Ticket is the only thing keeping me on DirecTV, so yeah, when that goes, so do I.
I dropped DTV for YouTube TV a few years ago, and you can still get Sunday Ticket if you claim to be out of the DTV service area. And they don't check that. What's great is that I get the online version of Sunday Ticket, which only lets you stream to one device in the house... but then I subscribed to the Red Zone channel through YouTube TV, so I can have one screen with RedZone and the TV screen with the game I want to watch. And it's still cheaper than getting the Sunday Ticket package that includes RedZone.
I hope Apple gets this, but really, any of the three would be better than DirectTV.
 
If MLB is any indication I hope they don’t get it, because I actually like football. I didn’t think baseball could get any worse and then I saw Apple take a crack at it.
I could see it now, "Why do they call it football when they use their hands?" 🙄
 
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Live sports in the US have become hard to watch due to relentless advertising. The format was already inundated with ads -- numerous lengthy commercial breaks, every stat/replay accompanied by the slogan of whichever sponsor is was "presented by", etc -- and in recent years, it's even worse. Now you get the on-uniform ads, the digitally superimposed pseudo-targeted ads on the field or ad boards around the perimeter, and my favorite, the picture-in-picture ads during the action -- because we wouldn't want the actual sport to interrupt an advertising opportunity, would we?
Really? Is relentless advertising is the battle you wish to fight? 🤣
 

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You are underestimating the power of civil liability. It doesn't take having a brain to realize that repeated blows to the head isn't good for brain health. A large group of former players sued the NFL because of the prominence of CTE and other brain diseases at young ages amongst those former players. The NFL's hand was forced into minimizing these brutal hits while also preserving the nature of the game. I think the outcome is still a great product, and there's plenty of people who agree with me based on viewership numbers being at all time highs.

I'm a Chicago Bears fan, so I grew up on a punishing style of football, but the game was forced to evolve. Come September, I still can't wait for Sundays to sit on my couch, open my fantasy apps and take in a fast-action, attention-grabbing sport. Saying the players don't care just doesn't make sense when all the science is now out there, and they still elect to pay a dangerous game because they love it enough to put their bodies at risk.
They didn't have to do anything, because they weren't forcing anyone to play their game. It was more a PR gamble. That and not wanting to pay out pensions.

But it has destroyed the game. It has ruined the balance between offense and defense. It's basically arena ball now (Bills vs Chiefs in last year's playoffs, anyone?). Remember that '05 and '06 Bears defense? Remember how amazing it was to watch them utterly dominate offenses and shut down, even against the best quarterbacks? Yeah... that's gone now. And if they don't fix the game, it's only going to get worse.

You watch, not because the game is better or as good, but because you can't give up a familiar love. Simply put: you're holding on to a ghost.
 
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For what it's worth, I've been wondering if Kay Adams is somehow tied to an Apple bid. News of her next step has been surprisingly hush hush which is in line with Apple.

Kay has no published new destination since she left Good Morning Football. It's hard to imagine the NFL and the alternate networks wouldn't hop on the Kay rocket ship. Top broadcasters always seem to find a home.

I emphasize this is all stuff in my head, and I'm wholly speculating.
 
Population of Liverpool: 500,000
Value of Liverpool FC: 0.5 Billion

Population of Green Bay, WI: 100,000
Value of Green Bay Packers: 3.5 Billion

Population of Buffalo, NY: 250,000
Value of Buffalo Bills: 2.27 Billion

Population of Cincinnati, OH: 300,000
Value of Cincinnati Bengals: 2.6 Billion

Population of Cleveland, OH: 370,000
Value of Cleveland Browns: 2.27 Billion

And those just are the "smaller" cities in the US. Not bad for "throwing football"

Football (Soccer) is the richest sport in the world with a global market value of around $600 Billion (American Football $200 Billion).

GOAL!

Football is played by over 300 million people (the equivalent of the whole population of the USA) throughout 200 nations around the world.

GOAL!

On Forbes’ list of highest-paid athletes, Lionel Messi with a net worth of $130 million at #1 rank, Christiano Ronaldo at #3 with a net worth of $115 million, and Neymar at #4 with a $95 million net worth.

GOAL!
 
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Live sports in the US have become hard to watch due to relentless advertising. The format was already inundated with ads -- numerous lengthy commercial breaks, every stat/replay accompanied by the slogan of whichever sponsor is was "presented by", etc -- and in recent years, it's even worse. Now you get the on-uniform ads, the digitally superimposed pseudo-targeted ads on the field or ad boards around the perimeter, and my favorite, the picture-in-picture ads during the action -- because we wouldn't want the actual sport to interrupt an advertising opportunity, would we?
For me , NFL is redzone , I cannot watch any other format , even if my fav team is playing a regular season game , ill still watch redzone if possible , the amount of breaks/ads in a single game is beyond my pain threshold , playoffs time , I usually have a TV show running on my computer that I watch and pause between breaks , but like you say , its painful to endure.
 
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Football (Soccer) is the richest sport in the world with a global market value of around $600 Billion (American Football $200 Billion).

GOAL!

Football is played by over 300 million people (the equivalent of the whole population of the USA) throughout 200 nations around the world.

GOAL!

On Forbes’ list of highest-paid athletes, Lionel Messi with a net worth of $130 million at #1 rank, Christiano Ronaldo at #3 with a net worth of $115 million, and Neymar at #4 with a $95 million net worth.

GOAL!
If there were that many goals in a game then maybe we'd watch it here in the US. 🤣
 
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Football (Soccer) is the richest sport in the world with a global market value of around $600 Billion (American Football $200 Billion).

GOAL!

Football is played by over 300 million people (the equivalent of the whole population of the USA) throughout 200 nations around the world.

GOAL!

On Forbes’ list of highest-paid athletes, Lionel Messi with a net worth of $130 million at #1 rank, Christiano Ronaldo at #3 with a net worth of $115 million, and Neymar at #4 with a $95 million net worth.

GOAL!
Sorry, but I feel I need to chip in, I'm European and love Football and I've been watching Soccer as well for all my life basically.

In North America Football is The Sport, the NFL is not a sports league, it's a money printing machine, it makes a lot of sense for Apple to try to acquire Sunday Ticket or anything related to the NFL.
They won't be bringing it outside of the US, or raise prices in other markets, because, outside of North America, the NFL is already covered, they have the Game Pass International, 190€ per season and you can watch every single game, pre-season, regular season and post-season and the Super Bowl, both live and on-demand, and I still believe that, if Apple gets Sunday Ticket, it would be a separate purchase, I don't think they will require people to have a subscription either.

But, really, to put things in perspective, Tom Brady - the greatest football player of all time, can we all agree on that? - got an offer from FOX, when - or if - he retires, to become a commentator, 375 million dollars for 10 years, to work around 20, 25 days per year basically, you see that kind of money, in soccer, only for the top players.

As for the money players are getting, keep in mind that in all team sports in North America you do have a salary cap, which is enforced, not like that financial fair play joke UEFA came up with, in the NFL you'll never be able to assemble teams like PSG or Manchester City, you simply won't have the money, I think that Mbappé, Neymar and Messi alone get more money than the entire salary cap for a NFL team - I think it's around 120 million dollars - and a football team's roster is 50, 55 players, plus staff.
I think that most top European soccer teams would crumble if a salary cap was enforced here, maybe only Liverpool, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid would survive, the first two are well managed and Real Madrid prints money.

I think nobody is arguing the soccer is more widespread worldwide, there are both cultural and practical reasons to that. Playing soccer is easier than playing football, first to play football you need certain physical characteristics you don't need to play soccer (legends like Iniesta, Xavi, Pirlo, Messi, Neymar would never be able to play football, they'd die on the field no matter their position), football is a contact sport and, like with every contact sport, you need to be a little crazy to play it, and you need expensive protective gear, whereas for soccer you need a ball, a field, posts, and maybe shin guards.

Going back to the original topic, one thing I think might give the NFL cold feet is streaming delay. When streaming a live event there's always a delay, when I watched Champions League games on Amazon Prime Video the delay was more than 1 minute, sometimes closer to two minutes, when I watched Thursday Night NFL games the delay was there, some people might get pissed off, but I think the biggest consideration is being given to live betting, I guess there's a lot of money involved in gambling, and no one is going to bet on a live game that they're watching with one or two minutes delay.
 
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Football (Soccer) is the richest sport in the world with a global market value of around $600 Billion (American Football $200 Billion).

GOAL!

Football is played by over 300 million people (the equivalent of the whole population of the USA) throughout 200 nations around the world.

GOAL!

On Forbes’ list of highest-paid athletes, Lionel Messi with a net worth of $130 million at #1 rank, Christiano Ronaldo at #3 with a net worth of $115 million, and Neymar at #4 with a $95 million net worth.

GOAL!

Took me awhile to get to this as I was traveling these past few months.

So based on your math...

Football (soccer) is worth $2 million per player ($600 billion/300 million players

Football (NFL) is worth $117 million per player ($200 billion/1696 players)

Also since math seems to be an issue for you..that means an NFL player generates more revenue than a soccer player.

TOUCHDOWN!
 
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