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The Wall Street Journal has an article this weekend about AT&T's acquisition of DirecTV, a move that could have big implications for NFL fans.
In an analyst meeting in New York on Wednesday, AT&T management highlighted Sunday Ticket as a cornerstone of future product-bundle offerings it can market to its customers, according to analysts who attended the meeting. AT&T executives even suggested it could exempt streaming of NFL games from counting toward subscribers' data limits.
AT&T "is looking to use the Sunday Ticket content over mobile devices and expects that it can be a differentiator over the long run to gain incremental market share in both mobile and broadband," Barclays said in a research note.
The NFL's exclusive deal with DirecTV has put it behind the curve when it comes to distribution of its games. The NBA, NHL, and MLB all have more convenient and more diverse mechanisms to make their out of market games viewable. Perhaps AT&T's purchase will be a game-changer since it has far greater capabilities than DirecTV.