Apple No Longer Bidding For NFL Games; Facebook, Amazon, Verizon And Yahoo Are Left

Apple Inc. AAPL is reportedly not among the high-profile bidders for NFL Thursday night game streaming rights. Apple seems to have determined that the potential price of the sports content would not pay off in the end.

According to JPMorgan analyst Rod Hall, Apple has been searching for a cornerstone app for its set-top streamer with strong enough content to compel customers to buy an Apple TV. Although Apple has been linked multiple times to a Thursday night NFL package, apparently Apple has now turned its attention elsewhere.

Hall believes Apple is far from giving up on sports content, however. He believes that the company has the ambition and the capital to push for something much more far-reaching than simply Thursday night games.

“We continue to believe that Apple would prefer to do a direct deal with the networks for streaming content including sports but will use direct bidding as negotiating leverage and a plan B should the approach fail,” he explained.

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Although Apple has dropped out of the race, there are several big-name tech companies still in the running for rights to the Thursday night NFL games, including Facebook Inc FB, Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN, Verizon Communications Inc. VZ and Yahoo! Inc. YHOO.

JPMorgan maintains an Overweight rating on Apple.

Disclosure: the author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.