The football league is acquiring shares in the sports channel, which will receive media rights – something that will also have an impact on German users.

ESPN has secured a groundbreaking deal with the NFL that will fundamentally change coverage of the world’s largest football league.

“ESPN’s purchase of the NFL Network and other digital assets from the league has been completed after government regulators approved the transaction,” ESPN, which is part of the Disney Group, announced.

The NFL and ESPN announced the deal on Saturday night/Sunday morning German time after the Department of Justice and other antitrust authorities gave the green light.

As part of the deal, ESPN will gain full control of the league’s own TV channel NFL Network, the RedZone conference on Sundays, and NFL Fantasy Football. This content is now to be integrated into the ESPN platforms as quickly as possible.

NFL and ESPN: Assets exchanged for company shares

But the deal is also worthwhile for the NFL. The football league will receive a ten percent stake in ESPN, making it a co-owner of the world’s largest sports channel.

This is an “asset-for-equity” deal. This means that assets were exchanged for company shares. Even though no money changed hands directly, experts estimate the value of the deal to be in the billions.

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The 10% stake in ESPN that the NFL is receiving is estimated to be worth between $2.5 billion and $3 billion.

While the NFL apparently expects the deal to relieve it of some of its operational media business, the new rights should help ESPN consolidate its position as the leading sports streamer in the US.
“Upon completion of the transaction, we will begin integrating NFL employees into ESPN in the coming months,” the two business partners said in a joint statement.

The deal is not expected to change NFL coverage in Germany on TV and streaming for the time being. However, anyone who has played Fantasy Football via the NFL will probably have to do so via ESPN platforms from next season onwards.

The plan is apparently to migrate existing users to ESPN. It will be interesting to see how this changes official Fantasy Football.