NFL's next big media rights payday is years off — and subject to a shifting industry

In 2021, the National Football League signed an 11-year, $111 billion media rights deal. In July, the National Basketball Association itself signed an 11-year, $77 billion deal.

What's next? Well, not too much soon.

While Ultimate Fighting Championship and Formula 1 contracts expire in 2025, the vast majority of major college and professional sports have recently signed long-term media rights deals with U.S. TV networks and streamers.

Welcome to the doldrums of sports media rights. Or, the calm before the storm.

The NFL can opt out of its current agreement with all of its media partners except Disneywhich has a slightly different deal structure — after the 2028-29 season. By then, driven by the pace of change at the biggest media companies, the entire landscape could be significantly different than it is today, drastically changing how much revenue leagues generate and who pays.

“Anyone who tells you with any certainty that the NFL is going to pull out or not is crazy,” said Daniel Cohen, Octagon’s executive vice president of global media rights consulting. “There’s so much you can’t predict, even two years in advance, let alone six.”

The NFL's decision to pull out, while still years away, is the next potential tectonic shift that will affect the balance of power in the media. It's possible that the NFL will opt to forge deals with longtime Sunday afternoon media providers like Fox And Paramount Global's CBS is in favor of streamers, such as Apple, Amazon, from Google YouTube or even Netflix.

It will also be a key driver of future NFL team valuations. On Thursday, CNBC will unveil its official 2024 NFL Team Valuations list, ranking all 32 professional franchises.

Given the current state of the media, with Paramount Worldwide agree to merge with Skydance Media by mid-2025, Discovery of Warner Bros. actively seeking partners to create scale and share the costs of content, and Netflix With the acquisition of NFL games on Christmas Day, the potential bidders for games four to five years from now could be dramatically different than they are now. That will determine how much of a raise the NFL can get on its next rights deal.

“There are probably going to be companies that don’t exist today that will merge to create new competing bidders,” said former CBS Sports President Neal Pilson, who founded sports media consulting firm Pilson Communications. “Other deals, like the NBA, are a data point, but the NFL is its own marketplace. The programming is the honey. It’s all driven by the popularity of the NFL.”

Another indicator of how big the future growth of sports media rights will be is the state of the declining pay-TV package. Pay-TV customers have been lost 4 million so far this year, “a staggering total for just six months,” according to a recent report from MoffettNathanson.

Live sports have long been the glue that holds it all together. The majority of viewers still watch via traditional television, rather than streaming.

The economics of the bundle – still a cash cow for content providers like Disney and from Comcast NBCUniversal — have been hoarding rights for decades. Meanwhile, streaming has still not made a profit for most media companies.

Traditionally, the reach of broadcast networks, particularly in rural areas that still lack consistent high-speed internet, has made the NFL value Fox, Disney, NBCUniversal and CBS — all of which own broadcast networks. Most NFL games are broadcast on national networks.

The NBA has also replaced its partnership with Discovery of Warner Bros.which does not have its own broadcast network, with NBCUniversal, which does.

But four years from now, it's possible that the continued shift to streaming, combined with Big Tech's deeper pockets, will convince the NFL to view broadcasting as anachronistic rather than essential.

On the other hand, if streamers become the sole distributors of sports, they will have all the market power, which could weigh on valuations.

“If you put all your eggs in the streaming parties’ baskets and traditional media are constrained to the point where they can’t pay for media rights, then you give streamers a lot of market power,” said Shirin Malkani, co-chair of the sports industry group at Perkins Coie.

Bank of America recently put together a chart of recent media rights deals and their estimated values. Some of the numbers are slightly different from the reported figures.

The National Hockey League's agreement with its media partners runs through the 2027-28 season.

Major League Baseball’s deal expires in 2028 — and will likely be shaped more by the expiration of the players’ collective bargaining agreement in 2026 than by the state of the media industry. Still, the rapidly changing regional sports business, on top of the traditional TV landscape, could make MLB a litmus test for the rights deals that follow.

The PGA Tour's media deal runs through 2030. NBCUniversal owns the Winter Olympics through 2030 and the Summer Olympics through 2032. NASCAR signed a deal with media companies late last year through 2031. ESPN secured the College Football Playoffs through 2031. Apple signed a deal for Major League Soccer through 2032.

The long-term nature of these deals has provided some certainty to the current media ecosystem, which is a benefit to the leagues, media companies and pay-TV providers, all of whom rely on the consistency of cash flow.

“My advice to clients is that if you have a deal that feels fair now, or is analytically fair to good, don’t go looking for something great,” said Cohen of Octagon, which represents several professional sports leagues in their media deals. “Things are going to continue to evolve over the next six years, so it’s best to hold on to a good deal.”

Disclosure: Comcast's NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.

Tune in: CNBC will announce the official 2024 NFL team ratings on Thursday, September 5, both on TV and online.