Biggest Sports Rights Deals Ever Signed by Streaming Companies

If you wanted to score the largest sports media contracts twenty years ago, your best bet would have been ESPN, NBC or FOX. 

Fast-forward to now...the names on those media rights contracts have changed completely: Apple, Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube are all writing checks worth billions as major league players in the sports media marketplace and have gone from being outsiders with no place at the big boys' table, to major players when it comes to sports rights deals. 

How streaming entered the sports business

Streaming services didn't just establish sports as a new revenue source overnight; a number of things coincided to create that opportunity; most importantly, 'cord cutters', who saw the price of cable subscriptions as too steep. 

Also, the younger demographic who grew up watching everything on mobile devices now expect to watch live sports on mobile devices as well.

Additionally, when tech giants (Apple & Amazon) discovered how many people consistently watch live sports, providing exclusive live coverage has become an exceptionally valuable asset, as it enables them to acquire new subscribers and retain current ones.

Ranking the five biggest deals

The largest streaming deals for sports created more value than just dollars; there was also value in changing how sports are presented and in determining which platforms would include certain culturally significant content.

NBA on Amazon Prime Video - $19.8 billion

At $1.8 billion per season under the 11-year, $76 billion contract, Amazon purchased rights to 66 games per season, and in the first instance of an NBA partner, streaming replaced the traditional cable partner it had for nearly 40 years when Warner Bros. Discovery-TNT was removed from its exclusive streaming partnership for the first time since 1984.

NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV - $14 billion

YouTube TV purchased exclusive rights to the NFL’s out-of-market Sunday Ticket package for about $2 billion per year over seven years. This ended DirecTV’s monopoly that had lasted since 1994. For the first time, millions of football fans had to access Sunday Ticket through a streaming interface. Google’s spending signaled that tech companies view live sports as essential.

NFL Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime Video - $11 billion

In an 11-year agreement worth nearly $1 billion per year, Amazon became the sole global streaming rights holder for Thursday Night Football, bringing the NFL behind a streaming paywall on a weekly basis. It became the singular destination for an entire game schedule, complete with its own announcers, studio shows, and analysis, and served as a proof of concept for streaming live sports.

WWE Monday Night Raw on Netflix - $5 billion

The streaming giant inked a 10-year contract that kicked off in 2025 and will make Netflix the sole worldwide distributor of WWE's Monday Night Raw. The deal is worth around $500M per year. For Netflix, which hadn't previously dabbled in weekly live programming, it was an enormous investment in appointment viewing; for WWE, it represented a shift away from cable and into a streaming-first platform in 190 countries.

Serie A on DAZN - $4.8 billion

DAZN retained exclusive domestic broadcasting rights for Italy's Serie A in a five-year deal (2024-29) reportedly worth around $960m per year. Unlike the deals for the American game with the tech giants, here a pure-play sports streamer is replacing pay-TV as the country's most-watched platform for the league.

Winners and Losers of the Streaming Era

Who has benefited from the situation? Honestly, it is the leagues that will profit the most. The more Streamers and Cable companies compete with one another for the rights to show a game, the higher the cost of those rights rises. 

This is a positive development for the NBA, NFL and all other leagues that sell their rights. 

But what about the fans? 

There are more options than ever before, but when you take out your wallet, the problems arise. To watch each of the Major Sporting Events, you may need to subscribe to Amazon Prime, YouTube TV, and Netflix, and likely maintain a cable subscription as well. This can get very expensive and add up quickly.

Now let's look at who is losing in this situation - Regional Sports Networks, along with mid-tier cable channels, are being decimated. They are simply unable to keep up with the financial resources available to the Big Tech companies.  

Take TNT as an example: they tried to retain the rights to the NBA and matched Amazon's offer, but still lost out; the league of professional sports has changed.