YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said her outfit would “love to stream the NFL,” according to Jason Del Rey of RECODE. YouTube has "bid on the rights to stream NFL games" for two straight years, but lost those bids to Twitter and Amazon, respectively. Wojcicki, speaking at Recode's Code Media conference yesterday, said that she "couldn’t speak to specific business deals or potential ones, but was comfortable laying out the pitch for why YouTube should be an attractive home to big live sporting events." She added that the platform also could "add specialized features, such as e-commerce functionality to sell sports merchandise" (RECODE.net, 2/13). PRO FOOTBALL TALK's Darin Gantt noted YouTube "boasts 1.5 billion logged-in viewers a month, so it has the potential for even larger audiences." The platform also had "millions of viewers at one time for rocket launches, so they can handle big crowds." Whether YouTube’s latest NFL bid is "more successful than the first two remains to be seen, but the simple act of expressing the desire is good for the NFL as they negotiate the next round of deals" (PROFOOTBALLTALK.com, 2/13).
PRICE TO PAY: Asked at the conference if Fox is overpaying for the "TNF" rights with a reported $3.3B price tag, 21st Century Fox President Peter Rice said, "I don’t think so. Any time you go to an auction, somebody wins, and everybody who loses says that the winner overpaid.” He added, "You either have the most-watched content on television, or you don’t have it." Meanwhile, Rice "doesn’t know which company he’ll go to if Disney successfully buys 21st Century Fox" (RECODE.net, 2/12).
