NFL Likely to Stay With CBS, Targeting Mass Renegotiation in 2029

The NFL is not likely to exercise a change-of-ownership option to renegotiate or exit its media-rights deal with CBS Sports parent Paramount Global, league commissioner Roger Goodell said.

Speaking on CNBC at the Sun Valley Conference in Idaho, Goodell instead said the more probable option is to stick with CBS Sports as Paramount seeks to close its proposed $8 billion merger with Skydance Media. The deal is now in front of the Federal Communications Commission for approval. 

“We’ve had a long relationship with CBS, for decades. We also have a relationship outside of that with Skydance. So I don’t anticipate that [an opt-out is] something that we’ll see. We have a two-year period to make that decision. I don’t see that happening, but we have that option.”

At the same event last year, Goodell was more noncommittal about the Paramount opt-out provision. Much more recently, though, the company reached a $16 million settlement with U.S. President Donald Trump to resolve allegations Paramount’s 60 Minutes improperly edited an interview with 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. 

The settlement has been widely criticized on legal and journalistic grounds, but it is also seen as something that will help pave the way for the Paramount-Skydance merger to close. To that end, Paramount co-CEO George Cheeks said at a shareholders meeting last week that the settlement “offers a negotiated resolution that allows companies to focus on their core objectives, rather than being mired in uncertainty and distraction.”

After another 90-day extension was implemented earlier this week, the Paramount-Skydance deal is now targeted for closing by Oct. 6.

Future Considerations

The NFL’s likeliest path remains exercising a broader set of contract opt-outs in its domestic media rights, arriving in 2029 for all of its existing partners, and in 2030 for ESPN. Front Office Sports sources say the league opting out then is a virtual lock, particularly given that the NFL continues to extend its position as by far the most popular programming in U.S. television, regardless of genre. 

“We really went a long way to put [the opt-outs] into the last contracts. Having the ability to do that, having that option to that, I think, will be valuable for us,” Goodell said, though adding a formal decision has not yet been made. 

In the meantime, CBS Sports will show the Chiefs, the league’s top viewership draw, most frequently in the 2025 season. The network will have as many as nine Kansas City games during the season.

The NFL, meanwhile, is an equity partner in Skydance and also develops content with that company.