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Is the NFL on YouTube the Future of Sports?

YouTube TV’s investment in the Sunday Ticket bundle seems like merely the first step in Alphabet’s larger opportunity of turning the one-time hub of cat videos into the future home for all video—on mobile, sure, but also TV.

YouTube C.E.O Neil Mohan.
YouTube C.E.O Neil Mohan. Photo: Jeff Kravitz/Getty Images
Julia Alexander
October 24, 2023

After a decade of imagining how live sports might jump from linear TV to streaming, it feels like we’re suddenly at an inflection point. Max just launched its Bleacher Report-branded sports add-on; Disney is preparing to beef up ESPN+ with games that average people care about; Apple paid $2.5 billion for Major League Soccer; Amazon bought Thursday Night Football for $10 billion; and NBA rights, which hit the market next year, are expected to double or triple in value as tech companies bid up the price. Money talks—just look at what’s happening with golf’s PGA Tour—and the deepest pockets are all in Silicon Valley.