Apple’s Not Giving up on College Football as It Eyes Playoff Streaming Rights

Apple has been pursuing bringing collegiate sports to Apple TV+ for years now, and despite repeatedly failing to get much traction, it doesn’t seem like it’s willing to throw in the towel anytime soon.

While Apple has landed some meaningful coups with MLB Friday Night Baseball and its MLS Season Pass, football seems to be the one sport that eludes it. Apple courted the NFL for Thursday Night Football seven years ago, and after losing out to Amazon, it set its sights on NFL Sunday Ticket in early 2020 and apparently came with a hair of getting it, but the deal fell apart in December due to what one reporter referred to as Apple’s “persnicketiness” in contract negotiations.

With the NFL clearly off the table, Apple renewed its interest in college football with a Pac-12 deal that almost came to fruition in August, but the deal fizzled out at the eleventh hour.

However, Apple is clearly undeterred by those failures and may now be aiming to secure rights to stream College Football Playoff (CFP) tournaments.

According to Front Office Sports, Apple and Amazon are vying for the rights to the 12-team tournament, whose media deal is expiring at the end of next year. While a streaming arrangement isn’t yet a foregone conclusion, Apple is hoping to secure at least a part of the pie to carry a few games on Apple TV+.

The CFP is reportedly now on the hunt for new media partners across the board for the 2026 expanded playoff season and has already held its first formal meeting to discuss options, which was attended by the usual sports heavyweights ESPN and Fox, as well as traditional broadcasters such as NBC. However, executive director Bill Hancock acknowledged that there was “mutual interest in a streaming element” for the CFP slate.

It’s unlikely that they’ll receive the semifinals or championship game. But the CFP’s new first round, which will include four games played on college campuses, could provide an opportunity for experimentation with streamers.

Front Office Sports

Sources indicate that it’s very unlikely that CFP will leave the broadcast networks behind in favor of an all-streaming model. Still, there’s room for some supplementary streaming coverage that could be similar to the deal Apple inked with MLB for Friday Night Baseball.

Even Amazon, despite its success with the NFL, has yet to make any inroads in college sports media rights. Rumor has it that Amazon was also pursuing a Pac-12 deal earlier this year but was pushed aside when Apple made a better offer of around $25-$30 million per school. Nevertheless, not all Pac-12 member schools were convinced that the streaming approach was the right way to go, resulting in the deal falling apart.

Front Office Sports notes that the “linear broadcasters” have had better success getting games onto their own streaming networks, with one example being the NFL and NBC’s $110 million deal to stream a wild card game exclusively on NBC’s Peacock service in January 2024. By comparison, the CFP’s 12-team format was initially estimated to be worth a staggering $2 billion annually, which would put it on par with the NFL Sunday Ticket; however, sources are saying that the actual number could be much lower.

[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]