NFL Taking Time to Find Right Investor Mix on Media Properties

The NFL is still planning to sell a stake in its media properties, but a deal may not come together until after the Super Bowl.

“My guess is we’re months away, not days away,” said league commissioner Roger Goodell.

The NFL hired Goldman Sachs to seek out investment partners for NFL RedZone, NFL.com, and NFL Network.

• Amazon was in the lead for a deal for up to 49% of the three properties, sources told Front Office Sports in November.
• The league may sell stakes in individual properties to different investors. 

Part of the delay in finalizing a deal is due to the numerous potential permutations of properties and potential investors.

‘Sunday Ticket’ in the Mix

Amazon is also interested in the out-of-market “NFL Sunday Ticket” package, which could fetch $2 billion to $3 billion per season in a deal that could include a stake in NFL Media. Disney may bid as well.

The league was reportedly hoping to entice Apple with “NFL Sunday Ticket” to establish a media relationship with the leading mobile device maker.

“We’ve had a tremendous amount of interest from some terrific media partners, technology partners that are interested in … everything from ‘Sunday Ticket’ to NFL Network to RedZone,” Goodell said, “and we’re looking to deploy [those] in a way that looks to the future in the next generation of media.”