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With the NFL seeking a 60% bump in TV rights, Rupert Murdoch looks to chop-block the league’s antitrust status

‘Let’s hear the NFL explain why it still deserves it’

With NFL games accounting for 136 of the top 200 U.S. telecasts last year, the league’s licensing demands can be compared to the legendary Vince Lombardi’s power sweep — largely indefensible, regardless of preparation, talent or foresight.

And with Paramount Skydance’s $110 billion Warner Bros. Discovery deal serving as catalyst, and an opt-out option looming in 2029, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and his media team are already esetting the 11-year, $111 billion collection of TV deals it signed five years ago with Disney, Comcast, Fox, Paramount and Amazon.

Reports suggests the league wants Paramount to up its per-season rights fee to $3 billion, a 50% increase, keeping two games on CBS each fall Sunday through 2033-34. With NFL viewership on CBS rising 11% last season to an average 21.25 million viewers — an all-time high for the network — David Ellison and heavily leveraged Paramount seemingly have no choice but to pay up.

Meanwhile, Big Tech spenders including Amazon and Alphabet use a whole different scale of economics. Traditional media companies face the prospect of getting priced out of an essential nutrient — or, at least, downsizing other parts of their food pyramid, including news and entertainment. By 2028, MoffettNathanson speculates, two-thirds of Fox’s content budget could be allocated to live sports. The equity researchers also suggest the NFL’s per-season price tag — not including deals with Netflix and YouTube — could increase from just over $10 billion to around $16 billion.

Then again, maybe not. Lombardi never met Rupert Murdoch.