Over the weekend, ESPN and the NFL received government approval for a deal that will see the NFL take a 10 percent stake in ESPN in exchange for key NFL Media assets including NFL Network and linear distribution rights to NFL RedZone.
The agreement, initially announced in August 2025, was expected to take between one and two years to clear various regulatory procedures. But to everyone’s surprise, the deal was approved just six months following the announcement, allowing both the NFL and ESPN to make the requisite maneuvers to swap assets during the offseason, with the intention that everything will be in place well before the start of the 2026-27 season.
The move is without precedent. Never before has a major North American professional sports league taken an equity stake in a broadcast partner airing its games. And as it turns out, the NFL’s minority ownership of ESPN could be on a timeline.
According to Disney’s quarterly filing to the SEC, the company has the right to buy back the NFL’s stake in ESPN beginning in July 2034 “in exchange for a ten-year note at 70 percent of the then fair market value of the NFL’s interest in ESPN.” Conversely, the NFL has an option to buy an additional 4 percent of ESPN at the same 70 percent of fair market value rate. Per The Hollywood Reporter, the deal has an estimated fair market value of $3 billion.
In other words, depending on how the deal is going eight years from now, ESPN has the option to buy itself back, or the NFL can re-up and buy a larger stake in ESPN.
There’s any number of reasons for such a provision to be included in the deal. Maybe the regulatory environment looks different in 2034, and there’s interest from federal agencies to prevent a professional sports league from owning part of a media company bidding for its rights. Maybe the NFL is bullish on ESPN’s growth prospects and wants to increase its stake. Maybe Disney sells other minority stakes in ESPN over the next eight years with the knowledge it can repurchase the NFL’s stake in 2034.
Whatever the case may be, it’ll be interesting to see if either side wants to exercise their option when the time comes.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.