Late yesterday, the NFL announced it renewed its "Sunday Ticket" deal with DirecTV for a reported 8 years at $1.5 billion per year, a 50% increase over their prior deal. Going back about a year, there were rampant rumors that the Sunday Ticket package could go to an OTT player, with Google being the name most often mentioned.

In reality, though, there was virtually no chance Sunday Ticket was going to go to OTT, and so the DirecTV renewal comes as no surprise. As I wrote over a year ago, there were at least 5 big challenges to a Google-NFL deal in particular. These essentially boil down to a combination of online video not being mature enough yet to exclusively handle marquee sports broadcasts and the incumbent TV ecosystem desperately needing to retain marquee sports broadcasts like Sunday Ticket.

While online video usage has exploded, and we've seen early success of TV Everywhere access as an augment to TV broadcasts of select sports (e.g. World Cup, Olympics, etc.), broadband and the Internet are not yet ready for Sunday Ticket style live broadcasting. Broadband ISPs, the critical link in the delivery chain, do not offer any guaranteed level of service to content providers. As Netflix's recent scrums with many broadband ISPs (and the subsequent deals it struck) prove, rock-solid TV-style content delivery is still a way off.

With these uncertainties, there's no way the NFL would risk its precious brand in such an unsure environment. In addition to the broadband infrastructure challenge and despite the rapid adoption of connected TV devices, it's still far from a seamless experience to watch video on the big screen at home (where Sunday Ticket fans want to watch). Between the cumbersome process of switching inputs, periodic and inevitable router hiccups, no support for picture-in-picture, etc., connected TVs don't yet meet the bar that Sunday Ticket subscribers have come to expect.

If all this wasn't enough, there were many powerful incentives at work to keep Sunday Ticket in the pay-TV ecosystem, not least of which that doing so was a contingency for DirecTV to consummate its $49 billion sale to AT&T. It's widely agreed that sports are the last bastion of live viewing, and therefore play an outsize role in keeping the whole TV system afloat. The NFL, whose entire financial viability now rests on its massive broadcast/cable TV deals, would be loathe to do anything that would raise the ire of its TV partners.

Therefore, redirecting its Sunday Ticket package to Google or any other OTT player would
be an extremely risky move. As an example of how fiercely incumbents will defend their turf in the face of disruptive actions, witness how quickly major U.S. IMAX theater chains declared they would not show the "Crouching Tiger" sequel, for which Netflix has obtained day-and-date rights. Now consider how broadcast and cable networks would react if Sunday Ticket went to Google, Netflix, Amazon, etc.

Despite the fact that all data suggests cord-cutting isn't rampant (yet), the TV ecosystem is under enormous pressure in the face of changing consumer behaviors, proliferating viewing devices and exploding content choices. The NFL is deeply invested in seeing the TV ecosystem weather this storm, not contribute to its intensity. Savvy initiatives like NFL Now allow the NFL to seriously play in online video, while not crossing the line with its broadcast and cable partners.

Moving Sunday Ticket to OTT was a Hail Mary fantasy bolstered by tech media outlets eager to stoke the flames of TV disruption. In reality, it never stood a chance of actually happening.