10 Aug Apple, YouTube and Netflix Are Getting Serious About Live Sports [Bloomberg]
BY LUCAS SHAW
August 10, 2025 | When Major League Soccer and Formula One couldn’t get TV networks to pay enough for their media rights, they turned to Apple. When the National Basketball Association’s talks with Warner Bros. Discovery reached an impasse, it recruited Amazon (and Comcast). And after Major League Baseball was spurned by ESPN, the league is hoping Netflix and Apple will boost its payday.
Leagues and their representatives have used technology companies to inflate the already gargantuan sums of money they collect for the rights to show their live games. The cost of airing sporting events has soared in recent years because it is the only kind of entertainment programming that can still command a large, live audience. The NBA just tripled its annual rights fees, while the NFL is in line for a massive pay increase when it chooses to have its next negotiation.
The leagues have sought larger paydays as their traditional partners, broadcast and cable networks, have shrunk. Regional sports networks, a huge source of cash for the NBA and MLB, are collapsing. In order to secure the large sums of money they want, the leagues have had to divide the rights among a wider pool of bidders.
Traditional media companies like Walt Disney, Paramount Global and Warner Bros. remain major players in the sports ecosystem, but there is a limit to how much they can spend. Amazon, Apple, Netflix and YouTube have a lot more dry powder — should they choose to use it.
Sports have, until recently, been the only thing holding the linear-TV bundles together. While customers can access all the entertainment they want via streaming, many of the biggest sporting events have still required some kind of pay-TV package. But between technology companies buying sports rights and traditional sports heavyweights like ESPN and Fox launching new streaming services, that is no longer the case. This shift will only hasten the demise of the cable and satellite businesses.