Interesting. I wonder, though, how many of those demands were hard requirements and how many were setting up to move towards what they ultimately want. Apple is a long-term investment type company. Keep in mind —- all contracts are re-negotiable.
And, the NFL also has non-monetary targets. They want to keep the games on broadcast TV to maximize the reach. They are not a niche league like MLS that's willing to be 100% on streaming. The prestige of the NFL is going to keep it out of a purely streaming product as long as there are TV stations broadcasting free over the air
The NFL isn’t willing to do that. They know they have a unique product so they don’t try to maximize short term revenues by sacrificing long term strength.
This is a good point and I suspect that was why Apple left the table. There’s no way they’d spend $2B/year (their entire original content spend in 2022 is estimated at 6.5B) to not have it Apple exclusive. Especially when TV+ is a loss leader already.