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The long-rumored sale of the NFL’s core media assets to Disney for a financial stake in ESPN is official, ESPN announced Tuesday evening ahead of parent company Disney’s 2025 third-quarter earnings results on Wednesday.
ESPN is acquiring NFL Network and the rights to distribute NFL RedZone to pay TV operators, in a deal the respective sides announced as “non-binding.” The NFL will continue to own RedZone and retain digital rights. ESPN is also taking over NFL Fantasy Football and will merge it with ESPN Fantasy Football.
The NFL gets a 10% ownership stake in ESPN.
The league is also holding onto NFL Films, NFL.com, the NFL Podcast Network, the NFL FAST Channel, and the websites of the league’s 32 teams.
The deal is subject to regulatory approval, and if approved, it likely won’t take effect until at least the 2026 football season.
The sweeping agreement has the potential to remake the landscape of sports media and create a new template for leagues to own a piece of their TV/streaming partners.
As part of the pact, ESPN will get an additional three NFL games per season to air on NFL Network.
Taking control of NFL Network and the league’s fantasy football business, with the ability to weave in sports betting, amounts to a major coup for ESPN. All of those assets shape up as extra selling points for ESPN’s first direct-to-consumer platform, launching this fall for $29.99. The league gets to exit the crumbling cable TV business, which it entered with the 2003 launch of NFL Network.
The NFL and ESPN are also entering “a second non-binding agreement,” the announcement says, “under which the NFL will license to ESPN certain NFL content and other intellectual property to be used by NFL Network and other assets.”
The historic deal would be a win-win for both sides. Disney/ESPN would become true equity partners with the nation’s richest, most powerful, and popular sports league. As cord-cutting continues to hammer the cable industry, it would give ESPN the inside track to retaining Monday Night Football rights, scoring better game schedules and, potentially, more Super Bowls down the road.
“It’s an expensive insurance policy for ESPN—but it’s worth it,” one industry source told Front Office Sports.
ESPN currently pays the NFL $2.7 billion a year for the rights to the Monday Night Football package. That’s more than any current media partner, including NBC Sports, Fox Sports, CBS Sports, and Amazon Prime Video. Under the current NFL agreement negotiated by ESPN bosses Jimmy Pitaro and Burke Magnus, ESPN scored rights to its first Super Bowl telecasts after the 2026 and 2030 seasons. Both will be simulcast on sister Disney network ABC. Showing a Super Bowl has been a dream of ESPN since its founding in 1979. Disney telecast its last Super Bowl in 2006 under the aegis of the old ABC Sports, which was later subsumed by ESPN.
Meanwhile, NFL owners pocket so much money off the league’s 11-year, $111 billion media rights contracts that they’re losing interest in operating a costly 24/7 cable network, sources said. Especially since the NFL wrote in a clause that will allow the league to opt out of its current contracts in 2029 and 2030 rather than waiting for 2033. The league also held discussions with other possible buyers, according to sources, but only ESPN stepped up to the plate.
It has been an uphill climb for ESPN to reestablish a positive relationship with the NFL. Eight years ago, the network was gauging a plot to “abandon” the league, reporter Jim Miller wrote at the time.
In the Pitaro era, ESPN dug deep into its wallet to poach Joe Buck and Troy Aikman from Fox Sports for Monday Night Football—in addition to continuing to air the ManningCast with Peyton and Eli Manning via a licensing deal with Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions. ESPN recently extended the contract of legendary anchor Chris Berman through his record 50th year with the network, so he will work ESPN/ABC’s coverage of Super Bowl LXI on Feb. 14, 2027. The network has even erected a Countdown Clock on its Bristol campus that ticks off the minutes until its first Big Game.
The on-and-off negotiations between the NFL, Disney, and ESPN have lasted for four years. But the negotiating dance between top executives in New York, Burbank, and Bristol is done.
One source told FOS the final hurdles were worked out during a face-to-face sitdown between NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and Disney CEO Bob Iger.
