current television contracts. The league's current deal with ESPN runs through 2021. The contracts to CBS, NBC and Fox are in effect until 2022.
In exchange for the right to broadcast games that are not available to customers, DirecTV will pay an annual rights fee , starting at $1.3 billion, and rising to $1.4 billion over the next decade.
DirecTV has been the Madden NFL 24 Sunday Ticket's sole distributor for over 20 years. It's current contract with a 1 billion annual cost, will expire following the 2014 season, which will mean the end of the term of a four-year contract.
It's been reported that Madden NFL 24 along with DirecTV have been discussing talks about an extension of their contract for a while. The Sports Business Journal notes that an official announcement isn't forthcoming, as issues like control over digital rights being debated but these issues are minimal in comparison to the overall scope of the contract.
It is believed that Madden NFL 24 was able to find a few potential buyers for the Sunday Ticket however none were like DirecTV. Even though the package remains valued as a commodity at present, there are two million users paying anywhere from $239.94 to $329.94 cable companies have stated that the presence of the intense Madden NFL 24 RedZone channels on packages for sports makes the Sunday Ticket less desirable.
Google was thought to be interested purchasing this Madden NFL 24 Sunday Ticket at one time, but it's not clear if the Internet company had serious talks about the deal with Madden NFL 24.
DirecTV was purchased by ATT in spring this year, but language in the deal indicated that ATT could opt to cancel the acquisition if DirecTV could not renew its agreement for the Sunday Ticket program. This could have resulted in an even bigger windfall to the . with DirecTV driven to do everything it could to make sure that the merger wouldn't fail.
