DIS - NFL Sunday Ticket still likely headed to streaming with fall decision ahead

Amazon.com ( NASDAQ: AMZN ) and Apple ( NASDAQ: AAPL ) have seemed like front-runners to mark a streaming takeover of the lucrative NFL Sunday Ticket package of out-of-market game broadcast rights currently on DirecTV - and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell isn't doing anything Friday to dissuade that notion.

Talking on CNBC, Goodell said "I clearly believe we’ll be moving to a streaming service," adding that such a move would make the games available to more viewers than Sunday Ticket's longtime setup on satellite, which has always called for a commitment to specialized equipment installation.

A decision is coming in the fall, Goodell indicated.

Two few weeks ago, the NFL was still working through Sunday Ticket bids from Apple ( AAPL ), Amazon.com ( AMZN ) and ESPN ( DIS ) - but the league appears to be pursuing a more complicated mix of assets and partnership talks rather than a simple rights hand-off .

And there's time yet, as DirecTV (in which AT&T ( T ) still holds a 70% stake) holds the Sunday Ticket rights through the upcoming season.

Sunday Ticket has long been a premium add-on for football fans, offering a large package of out-of-market games for fees ranging well over $100 per season to satellite subscribers. While it seems to be headed to a streamer, it won't become a cheap loss leader for any of the hotly competitive services to add subscribers: CNBC previously noted that the NFL's deals with CBS and Fox mandated a premium price (currently about $300) for Sunday Ticket, in order to maintain some viewership for local-market games.

It's been a year since the NFL wrapped up a giant $100B-plus package of rights renewals that largely kept the football in legacy media's red zone - sealing deals with Disney ( DIS ), Fox ( FOX ) ( FOXA ), NBCUniversal ( CMCSA ), Paramount Global ( PARA ) and Amazon ( AMZN ), and leaving Sunday Ticket as the last unresolved piece .

In April, Puck News reported Sunday Ticket was already Apple's ( AAPL ) to lose, saying the deal was done and kept quiet at Apple's request .

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