Broadcasting industry CEO says consolidation ‘essential’ to compete for rising NFL media rights prices

The evolution of live sports programming has become a battleground between traditional streaming companies and streaming platforms, competing for the right to broadcast the best games possible year after year.

The NFL is the cream of the crop, generating approximately $10 billion a year from its current media rights deal. And the league is likely to renegotiate that deal later this year, with reports indicating they want it done before the start of Week 1 of the 2026 season in September.

With additional media partners potentially entering the fold in this new deal, where do incumbents like News, News and NBC stand on the pie chart that is the NFL schedule?

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Curtis LeGeyt, executive director of the National Association of Broadcasters, which lobbies federal agencies and lawmakers on behalf of the broadcasting industry, spoke with John Ourand on “The Varsity” podcast, where he suggested that the broadcasting industry needs to consolidate if it wants to continue competing with streaming platforms for the rights to live sports.

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“I think, for better or worse, (consolidation) is essential right now,” he explained. “And I’m looking at this purely through the lens of broadcasting. If we’re going to compete for those NFL sports rights, if we’re going to compete locally to ensure that teams feel like they have a local distribution option that’s freely available through local broadcasts as opposed to regional cable or even streaming sports networks, broadcasters need some scale to fill that out. The only way to gain that scale is through some level of consolidation.”

We’re already seeing key mergers in broadcast television, including Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, which is awaiting approval and will likely come to fruition. Additionally, the NFL and ESPN reached a historic agreement in which the sports giant acquired NFL Network, NFL RedZone and NFL Fantasy. In exchange, the league received a 10% stake in ESPN, valued at around $3 billion.

The merger of these broadcasters can help compete against the likes of Amazon, Netflix and perhaps others will join the fray when negotiations for a new media rights deal take place. With JC Tretter elected as the new executive director of the NFL Players Association, those negotiations could come sooner rather than later.

Now, where does the NFL fan come into play here? The price of simply watching the NFL schedule is quite expensive, and fans will have to pay at least $575 to watch every game if they want to in 2025. The need for subscriptions to ESPN, Peacock, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and NFL+, among others, is only pointing upward as prices for the league’s media rights continue to grow.

Fans would like to be able to access their favorite sports if they are broadcast free-to-air.

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The FCC said last month it would seek public comment on the ongoing shift of live sports from broadcast channels to streaming services, which include the country’s other major sports leagues like the NBA, MLB and more.

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