Apple’s NFL deal fall-through hints AR sports TV plan

The sport screen on TV app

Read between the lines and it’s surely obvious that Apple has some big plans for virtual reality and sports entertainment as VR rights were the sticking block that scuppered the company’s attempt to secure NFL Sunday Ticket deal.

Apple wanted ‘unknown rights’

Reports claimed Apple has been negotiating with NFL for almost a year to secure these rights. There was even a time when we all thought Apple had this deal in the bag.

But that’s not what happened.

According to The Athletic, the deal was scuppered over rights to virtual reality broadcasts of games. As it transpired, the deal to broadcast NFL Sunday Ticket matches went to YouTube, rather than Apple, which had been tipped to secure these matches right until the eleventh hour. It seems that Apple wanted to secure the rights to distribute the games on something called “unknown rights” which the report understands to be AR and VR platforms.

Of course, those platforms don’t yet exist. (Or, perhaps it is fairer to say, haven’t yet been announced).

What the papers say

Here’s how author Daniel Kaplan puts this:

“Apple and the NFL also could not agree on whether the company would get the right to distribute Sunday Ticket on yet non-existent platforms. Apple is heavily investing in virtual reality and augmented reality, nascent platforms in which sports are so far largely not viewed. As a result, Apple wanted what is dubbed known and unknown rights, individuals familiar with the NFL and Apple said. In other words, there is no known virtual reality market for Sunday Ticket, but there might be one day.”

Now it is possible NFL may sell those rights in a new future category if these platforms ever appear, which I guess means Apple may yet gain the rights to broadcast these games to VR/AR device. Maybe.

Perhaps reflecting just how much negotiation was going on behind the scenes over this deal, Apple will be sponsoring the NFL’s Super Bowl halftime show this year. It isn’t known to what extent the firing of the company’s lead negotiator, Tony Blevins, may have impacted the success of the negotiation.

What I think this suggests

All the same, what I think this means is that while Apple doesn’t want to discuss it, the company has some interesting plans around sports entertainment, and those plans extend to VR/AR – which should be exciting to sports fans.

Imagine being able to virtually watch the action in from the vantage point of being near the goal, or (presumably) gain a player’s eye view of the action as it happens. This may not be the future in the first implementations, but at some point, suggests that Apple’s realityOS may deliver some perfrectly profound entertainmemnt nd training experiences. It’s going to be very interesting to see what those will be.

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