Sports bars and restaurants will not be forced to stream NFL Sunday Ticket this season after all—an unexpected reversal of the league’s media strategy.
A new multiyear deal will see DirecTV continue to distribute the NFL’s out-of-market game package via satellite at commercial establishments.
DirecTV’s previous deal expired after the 2025 NFL season, and EverPass Media—a joint venture between the league and RedBird Capital—became the exclusive commercial platform for Sunday Ticket. The change meant businesses that have long relied on DirecTV’s satellite equipment to show NFL games would have to make the switch to streaming hardware from EverPass. DirecTV says it serves more than 300,000 commercial locations nationwide, which opened up the possibility of potentially widespread streaming issues for some customers this coming NFL season.
The EverPass takeover was also another blow for DirecTV, which lost consumer rights to Sunday Ticket to YouTube TV in 2023. In March, DirecTV,went public with its frustration, saying that EverPass “failed to meaningfully engage with DirecTV following months of proposals at terms consistent with the prior agreement,” in a note to customers posted online, and that the EverPass streaming technology “remains unproven in multi-screen commercial settings.”
EverPass said at the time that its goal was “to modernize how premium live sports are delivered and ensure commercial establishments navigate this transition with confidence.”
But that approach has shifted, and DirecTV For Business (the satellite provider’s commercial arm) will now serve as EverPass’s sales, marketing and commercial distribution partner for NFL Sunday Ticket with and without NFL RedZone. DirecTV For Business will also be EverPass’s preferred national distributor for EverPass streaming platforms throughout the U.S.
Additionally, the deal gives DirecTV For Business customers access to subscribe to other premium sports content on EverPass like the NFL’s Netflix Christmas Day games, Amazon’s Thursday Night Football, and Peacock Sports Pass, among others. For sports bars and other businesses looking to show Sunday Ticket, that all means they will have the option of using DirecTV’s satellite services or streaming technology from EverPass or DirecTV, depending on their setups.
The new deal will run through at least the 2028 season, and potentially longer, one source told Front Office Sports. While financial details of the deal were not revealed, the value of the rights fee EverPass was seeking from DirecTV was one key disagreement that was resolved ahead of this new deal being signed, another source told FOS.
The long-term strategy for EverPass remains to eventually transition all sports bars and other commercial customers to streaming technology for its live sports offerings. But it’s unclear when that will be 100% viable, given the challenges associated with some remote and more off-the-grid locations where satellite still offers a better feed that internet streaming.
Editors’ note: RedBird IMI, in which RedBird Capital Partners is a joint venture partner, is the primary investor in Front Office Sports.
