Covington, Perkins Coie Punch Tickets on $14 Billion NFL TV Deal

Perkins Coie and Covington & Burling took lead roles for longtime clients, Alphabet Inc. and the National Football League, on a big broadcast deal announced this week.

The NFL announced Thursday that its Sunday Ticket package of out-of-market afternoon games will be available in the US on YouTube TV and YouTube Primetime Channels beginning in 2023. DirecTV, a satellite television provider spun-off last year by former parent AT&T Inc., has held distribution rights to the package since 1994.

The seven-year deal is valued at roughly $14 billion, or more than $2 billion per year. Alphabet, owner of Google and YouTube, had reportedly been willing to pay up to $2.5 billion per season, about $1 billion more than what DirecTV paid.

Perkins Coie was outside counsel to Google on the Sunday Ticket deal, said two sources familiar with the matter. The law firm, which has a stable of high-profile technology clients, is a go-to legal adviser for Alphabet. Perkins Coie has handled roughly 8% of the company’s litigation caseload in US federal courts within the past five years, according to Bloomberg Law data.

Covington special counsel Michael Hill, antitrust and sports practice leader Derek Ludwin, and technology transactions associate Vesta Parvaresh advised the NFL on the deal, according to the firm. Covington has been a first-string firm for the league.

Covington advised the NFL earlier this year on the sale of the Denver Broncos to an ownership group led by billionaire S. Robson Walton, a lawyer and heir to the fortune of late Walmart Inc. founder Sam Walton. The $5 billion deal was a record-setting price for a US professional sports team.

The NFL’s close Covington ties extend to its former commissioner, Paul Tagliabue, who is now special of counsel with the firm in Washington. Tagliabue was a Covington partner prior to leaving the firm in 1989 to join the New York-based league, where he would spend nearly the next two decades as its top executive.

In 2014, Covington advised the NFL on its last Sunday Ticket deal, an eight-year, $12 billion accord with DirecTV. Google’s new agreement with the NFL, which comes after Apple Inc. reportedly backed out of the bidding, marks the latest shift away from traditional networks toward streaming. Amazon.com Inc. started its 11-year, $13 billion deal this past September to stream the NFL’s Thursday Night Football.

The NFL’s agreement with Google doesn’t include access by sports bars and restaurants to the league’s slate of Sunday afternoon games. The NFL and YouTube said in a statement they “will work together to determine additional ways to support distribution” to commercial establishments, which under the league’s DirecTV deal had been the subject of antitrust litigation.

Covington and Washington’s Wilkinson Stekloff represented the NFL and its 32 teams in that case, which went to arbitration after the US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal two years ago.

Across the Gridiron

NFL teams are also still recruiting in-house lawyers as the league prepares for the playoffs to begin next month.

Hogan Lovells associate William Nunn left the firm to join the Broncos as a deputy general counsel. The firm advised Walton on his purchase of the Broncos and had a role on a naming rights deal for the team’s home stadium in 2019.

Timothy Aragon, a former Hogan Lovells partner hired by the Broncos as their top lawyer in August after taking the lead for the team’s new ownership on its acquisition of the Broncos, confirmed the hire via email. Aragon said Nunn started Oct. 18.

That same month the Philadelphia Eagles—who at 13-1 have the best record in the league—announced their hire of Latham & Watkins corporate associate Daniel-John “D.J.” Sewell as an associate counsel. Sewell spent the past two years working at Latham and Brown & Sims in Houston.

Haslam Sports Group LLC, owner of the Cleveland Browns and Major League Soccer’s Columbus Crew, announced last month its hire of assistant general counsel Mary Shepro, who will work for both teams. Shepro spent the past eight years as an associate at DLA Piper and Jones Day in Chicago, where she did litigation and investigations work for clients in the sports, media, and entertainment space.