The NFL is six years behind both MLB and the NBA. At least, perhaps, in terms of technology freedom. In two years’ time, though, it might seize the initiative and leapfrog those other leagues.
When the NFL and the NFL Players’ Association negotiated the current collective bargaining agreement in 2011, a host of major companies either didn’t yet exist or were still just tiny, inconsequential dreams. That list includes startups like DraftKings, Lyft, and Snapchat. The lawyers who wrote up the CBA would have had little idea of the impact those new tech companies might have on the world, and any ability to cover their scope won’t come until a new CBA is drawn up in 2022.
DraftKings is now a fantasy sports powerhouse and has raised over $700 million in funding. With the legalization of sports gambling in the U.S. just a few weeks ago, it is set to become much bigger. Lyft is a ridesharing service and has pulled in $4.3 billion in investment. It is valued at around a seventh of rival Uber’s $72 billion, and has backing from CapitalG, the investment arm of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Snapchat launched as a way to share photos that would disappear after a few seconds. It has since diversified and rebranded as Snap as it seeks to compete with social media giant Facebook and reached a valuation of $28.3 billion when its shares went public in March 2017.
The wearable technology space has also exploded in the last few years. Fitbit’s first device only appeared in 2009. The Apple Watch was released in 2015. Whoop, which makes activity tracking wristbands, was founded in 2011. Last year, the NFLPA signed a deal with Whoop to provide bands to every active NFL player. According to the NFLPA and Whoop, those devices represent a major opportunity to impact player health. However, without the NFL’s permission, those bands can’t be used in games.
The NFL does track players during games through a partnership with Zebra Technologies, in accordance with Article 51 Section 13. (c) of the CBA, but until recently most of that data was available only to the league, not the teams or players. And the CBA text only refers to worn devices. Elsewhere, the CBA doesn’t mention the word “technology” even once. There seems little flexibility in the document to bring in new ideas.
The NBA’s CBA, signed much more recently that NFL’s, in contrast, proposed the formation of a joint committee to review the potential use of wearable technology. But even that might not be a broad enough idea. Not all technology is wearable, and just because wearables are a hot topic right now, that doesn’t mean something else isn’t on the horizon.
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CBA’s aren’t the only long-term deals in pro sports. In 2014, the NFL signed a $39.6 billion nine-year TV deal with CBS, Fox, NBC, and ESPN. In 2016, the NBA extended its existing deal with ESPN and TNT for another nine years, and $24 billion. Outfielder Giancarlo Stanton is in the middle of a $325 million, 13-year deal that he originally signed with the Marlins in 2015. In 1996, telecommunications company AT&T bought the naming rights to the San Francisco Giants planned new stadium for 24 years for just $50 million. A lot has changed in the more than two decades since then. Google now exists, for instance. In 2015, the Silicon Valley tech giant launched its own cell service, and AT&T competitor, called Project Fi. And JPMorgan Chase’s deal for the Warriors’ new arena is reportedly valued as much as $20 million per year.
While there can be ways to sidestep those long deals, those are never perfect solutions. Stanton was traded to the Yankees in December, but Miami still remains liable for $30 million of his contract. The NFL experimented with live streaming a game via Yahoo in 2015, and has expanded that with Twitter and now Amazon, but those deals feel like afterthoughts to the main broadcast contracts.
Long-term agreements in sports are generally beneficial. They bring stability to the leagues, avoid player walkouts, bring in significant money, and act to protect the interests of all parties. The NFLPA, for example, hopes to use the CBA to push back against the NFL’s recent ban on civil rights protests by players during the U.S. national anthem.
But the world of technology is a place where billion-dollar unicorns appear from nowhere, and sometimes disappear just as quickly, too. Long-term deals in sports either need to anticipate the un-anticipatable, or perhaps shouldn’t be quite so long—even if that means lowering the price of the partnerships. Right now, some kid somewhere in her parents’ garage might be tinkering with an idea that could launch her above the likes of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and drag our world further into the technological age. A couple of years later, sports might catch up.