CNBC Sport: What YouTube's first NFL game says about the league's future

Published Thu, Sep 11 202510:00 AM EDTUpdated Thu, Sep 11 202511:02 AM EDT

Contessa Brewer @contessabrewer

Alex Sherman @in/alex-sherman @sherman4949

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Key Points

YouTube's first NFL game didn't have broadcast networks fearing for their NFL futures.
NCAA President Charlie Baker weighed in on private equity and betting in college sports.
Former Milwaukee Bucks owner Marc Lasry said he didn't think Clippers owner Steve Ballmer tried to circumvent the NBA's salary cap.

A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Sport newsletter with Alex Sherman, which brings you the biggest news and exclusive interviews from the worlds of sports business and media. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox. Hello sports fans! Two significant stories I want to hit this week. First, we got TV ratings info for YouTube's first-ever NFL game – an excellent Week 1 matchup between America's darling Kansas City Chiefs and the upstart L.A. Chargers. The underdog Chargers won 27-21 in São Paulo. The game was available for free to anyone who logged on to YouTube. This had the makings of a tectonic moment in sports history. If YouTube delivered a huge ratings number, the broadcast networks that have leaned on their reach for relevance – Fox, CBS, NBC and ABC – would have to admit that YouTube, with its 2 billion monthly active users, is simply a better mousetrap to maximize viewing audience. The ramifications of this could be enormous. At the end of the 2029 season, when the NFL can trigger an opt-out clause on its current media rights deal, the league could shift Sunday games to YouTube and away from traditional broadcast. That may still happen. But last week's game won't be the pivot point some thought it would be. On Friday night, 17.3 million households watched the game on YouTube, according to Nielsen. Of that total, 16.2 million came from the U.S., with 1.1 million international. How do we put this number in context? Well, there's an obvious parallel: last year's Week 1 game, also on a Friday, between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Green Bay Packers was exclusively on Peacock. One would assume the YouTube game would draw a far bigger audience because the platform is a) free while Peacock is a paid subscription service with a domestic-only audience and b) a much larger streaming service. Yet 14.2 million households watched that 2024 game. Yes, that's 2 million fewer than viewed the YouTube game, but the difference doesn't come close to being strategically interesting. The fear for broadcast is if that delta becomes 10 million or 20 million. For some additional context, about 23.9 million viewers tuned in to watch CBS' Sunday late-afternoon game between the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers. (To be fair, these ratings figures aren't quite apples to apples because Nielsen changed the way it collects data for this season). Beyond the simple ''legacy media can breathe a short-term sigh of relief" angle – which isn't that relevant since the NFL's media rights deal isn't up until after the 2029 season anyway – the interesting number to me is the 1.1 million international figure. YouTube can deliver a huge global audience, and clearly, the NFL simply isn't a major draw yet abroad — even for a game held in South America. You can see why Commissioner Roger Goodell wants to dramatically increase the number of international games for the league – all the way up to 16 contests in the next five years. That's where the growth is, and that's where YouTube and Netflix – streaming services with huge global audiences – can be so valuable as new partners. Simply playing games in another country may not dramatically move the needle for the league, but the NFL is very willing to play the long game here. The second story I wanted to write about comes from an interview I did this week with Avenue Capital's Marc Lasry . We'll publish the Lasry interview in full at a later date, but he said something I wanted to highlight immediately. In case you're not familiar with Lasry, he's the former controlling owner of the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks (he sold the team in 2023). He's almost the human incarnation of CNBC Sport – he established a sports investment fund in 2024 that's interested in buying minor league baseball teams, NWSL teams, WNBA teams and others. The fund acquired the New York Mavericks team in PBR Teams, the Professional Bull Riders league. He's the lead investor in the San Francisco team of TGL, the simulated golf league that launched last year. The fund has invested in Unrivaled , the 3-on-3 women's basketball league. Lasry told me that we are on the verge of having college football teams securitize themselves by selling stakes to private equity firms. "We've been on the 1-yard line about five times," said Lasry. "It'll get done. The hurdle is always at the end day, nobody wants to be first." Lasry explained to me how he believes this will work. "Assume a team makes $100 million of revenue. You would go out and sell 10%, so that's $10 million. So now, whatever the revenue of that team is going forward, you're going to get 10% of it," said Lasry. "The idea is, by me giving you money today, you're going to get better, because you're going to spend it on better players, and therefore your revenue is going to go up, and therefore I'm going to start getting good returns." Lasry expects the competitive dynamics of colleges legally paying players will force teams to find new ways to access cash. It's a topic I plan to ask Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark , Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman and ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips about next week in Los Angeles at Game Plan , CNBC and Boardroom's annual sports business conference. I'll be there with a handful of my colleagues – a few tickets are still available. On the record With NCAA President Charlie Baker ... I just happened to chat with another interested party in the business of college sports this week – NCAA President Charlie Baker. The NCAA doesn't have direct authority over how schools and conferences choose to fund their programs, but Baker told me he thinks any deal with private equity that includes elements of operational control may be "a bridge too far." "If you get into a relationship with a partner in private equity around the actual operation of your programs, you're going to have to figure out in advance how much control you give to them, what type of earning is going to be required by them to invest in your program, and what kind of impact that's going to have on the full complement of sports and programs that you make available," said Baker, noting there may be conflicts of interest between maximizing investor returns and boosting lower revenue sports that provide other ancillary benefits to school programs. This is a different approach than the one Lasry laid out, which Baker said he hadn't really thought about yet. Still, Baker said he thinks there is a place for private equity in college sports. He pointed to specific projects, such as building new facilities, where funds can help schools take advantage of outside capital. "You might want a capital partner to help you build something and make sure you build it well, build it right, and finance it and operate it on terms that make it successful," he said. Baker and I had a wide-ranging conversation about NIL, or name, image and likeness, conference realignment, Title IX protection and the Trump administration's take on the state of college sports. You can watch our entire conversation here. Contessa's corner We have something new to announce this week! I'm happy to welcome CNBC correspondent Contessa Brewer to the newsletter. Many of you likely already know that Contessa covers the gambling industry for CNBC (by the way – Charlie Baker and I discussed his thoughts on college sports betting … he wants a full ban on prop bets , for starters). Well, now she's going to have a weekly spot in the newsletter, too. Take it away, Contessa! Well, this is a first: a place for me to offer up the nuggets and news that I collect throughout the week on sports gambling. The first week of the NFL season is under our betting belts, and the sportsbooks say star players are generally more of a draw for wagers than the teams themselves. College football … not so much. It's still the schools that get the attention. One betting enthusiast suggested it's because there are so many new players every year and it takes time to build fan loyalty. I often get pinged when gamblers encounter challenges with their sportsbooks — and the early football season has been no exception. One of my co-workers sent me screenshots of his FanDuel account posting inaccurate live scores for the Tennessee v. East Tennessee State game on Saturday. What really infuriated him was the inability to contact customer service. When he finally sent a message to FanDuel's Instagram account, he found the reply appalling! "You're not responsible for the scores displayed on YOUR SITE?" my colleague said of FanDuel. Yep, there it is. … In FanDuel's house rules , section 6, "In Play Betting," line 7. For what it's worth, DraftKings also posts similar language on its website regarding errors in game statistics and live scoring. My colleague wasn't the only one surprised to see that in black and white. In-game betting is so popular and such a draw that gamblers are making split-second decisions based on the stats displayed. Who's taking time to double-check the scores on other sites? And what about the time lag – or what the data providers call "latency?" FanDuel acknowledged the error in the way the game score was displayed and pinned it on a third-party provider. In an email, the company said, "We're continuously working with our partners to ensure the accuracy of the scores shown on our platform and encourage customers to review official league pages for the most accurate statistical and scoring information before wagering if they're unable to watch the broadcast live." The bigger story for NFL's first week is the emergence of predictions markets on sports offered by Kalshi, Robinhood, Polymarket and Underdog with Crypto.com . But the legality of those offerings isn't settled. The U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments Wednesday in Kalshi v. New Jersey. The case centers on whether the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has the right to regulate sports event contracts, preempting New Jersey's right to legislate and regulate sports gambling. Kalshi's head of corporate development and former acting CEO at the American Gaming Association, Sara Slane , wrote on LinkedIn, "Prediction markets are under threat — and so is the stability of the global financial system." That dire warning aside, California tribes are also suing for a preliminary injunction against Kalshi to block its prediction markets. For its part, the NFL says those markets are ripe for monetary distortion or manipulation. Some sportsbooks are taking a cautious approach. BetMGM CEO Adam Greenblatt told me the day the NFL season kicked off that he's not rushing into prediction markets. "We think the balance of benefit and risk is unfavorable," he said. Kalshi is taking the lead and the spotlight on the court cases, and the others are waiting to see what will happen. Case in point, Jim Cramer asked Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev about sports gambling and predictions markets on CNBC's " Squawk on the Street " on Wednesday. Tenev highlighted the opportunities to trade on PPI and CPI data releases, rather than sports. CNBC Sport highlight reel The best of CNBC Sport from the past week: I spoke with Charlie Baker remotely because he was in Indianapolis preparing for a TED Talk at TedSports Indianapolis. This is the first ever TEDx event centered around sports, and Neelay Bhatt , the co-chair and curator of the event, told me he hopes it's the start of a new franchise. "The idea is to grow it in Indianapolis first and then see what happens from here on," Bhatt told me. You can watch our entire interview here . Sticking with sports betting, Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin stopped by " Squawk Box " ( happy 30th anniversary , by the way) to tout his own company's gambling business … at least in the future. Rubin said sports betting will lose Fanatics about $300 million this year but will account for 40% of the company's total profits in five years. He expects the gambling business to lose about $150 million next year before getting into the black for 2027. A CNBC Sport exclusive: My colleague Mike Ozanian got his hands on internal NFL documents with exclusive, never-before-seen data on tickets sold, net ticket receipts, gross general admission ticket prices and the premium paid for club seats for all 32 teams for the 2024 season. Serena Williams ' investment fund, Serena Ventures, is among investors that followed Marc Lasry and others to put money into Unrivaled , which is now valued at $340 million, reports CNBC's Jess Golden . EverPass Media struck a deal this week with Disney 's ESPN to distribute live games and other content from its ESPN+ streaming service to bars, restaurants and other commercial establishments in the U.S., reports CNBC's Lillian Rizzo . NFL MVP, Buffalo Bills quarterback and recently married man Josh Allen has ditched Nike to sign an endorsement deal with New Balance. The big number: $9.2 billion Ticket reseller StubHub is getting ready to go public at a valuation of up to $9.2 billion , the company said in a new filing this week. StubHub plans to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "STUB." The company is aiming to raise as much as $851 million in its initial public offering. Quote of the week "There haven't really been any issues in the NBA if you take a look over the last five to 10 years, so I think it's a lot of smoke, but I don't think there's much there." — Marc Lasry on whether he believes the report from "Pablo Torre Finds Out" that Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer circumvented the salary cap by working with the company Aspiration to pay superstar forward Kawhi Leonard a side deal of $28 million. Lasry told me he's known Ballmer for a long time and "always found him to follow the rules and do what's right." NBA Commissioner Adam Silver also spoke to the Leonard story on Wednesday, saying he'd never heard of Aspiration before Torre's report. Around the league To underline Charlie Baker's point about banning prop betting, the NCAA this week revealed three student-athletes have been released from their teams, kicked out of school and permanently banned from playing collegiate basketball "as part of a coordinated effort" to "bet on their own games" and "one another's games" during the 2024-25 season. According to an NCAA report, "the NCAA enforcement staff began the investigation after notifications from Fresno State and a sports betting integrity monitor about suspicious prop bets." The investigation targeted Mykell Robinson and Jalen Weaver , who played at Fresno State, and Steven Vasquez of San Jose State. A few weeks ago, I spoke with ESPN reporter and author Seth Wickersham about his new book "American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback." You can listen to that conversation here . Well, today the book hits stores everywhere, so if you're interested in hearing from the Mannings, John Elway, Warren Moon , Caleb Williams , Steve Young , Patrick Mahomes and many others about what it means to play the position, make sure to pick up a copy. Titleist is opening its first U.S. store. The dedicated retail space is at the Pinehurst Resort in Pinehurst, North Carolina, offering club and ball fitting services and Titleist products, according to MyGolfSpy. Disclosure: NBC Sports, which shares parent company NBCUniversal with CNBC, broadcasts NFL games.