Image by Keith Johnston from Pixabay
Are you ready for some sportstball? Wedbush analyst Dan Ives thinks Apple is. Late last week, MacRumors outlined a note he wrote. According to Mr. Ives, Apple’s in an “aggressive hunt” for live sports to stream, and is “ready to spend billions” to get it. Quoting his note.
With Apple spending $7 billion annually on original content and having roughly $200 billion of cash on its balance sheet, we believe the company is gearing up to bid on a number of upcoming sports packages coming up for contract/renewals in future years. We note that upcoming sports packages potentially for bid over the next four years that Apple can be involved with (in some capacity/semi-exclusive) are: NFL (Sunday Night Ticket), Big Ten, Pac 12, Big East, Big 12, other NCAA sports packages (2024 timing), NASCAR, and the NBA/WNBA.
Ives’ thinking folds in nicely with a report last week from the New York Post. That indicated that Apple was in “serious talks” to broadcast Major League Baseball games, likely in a non-exclusive deal. That said, it’s hard to know whether Ives is hearing something similar to what the Post is hearing, or simply extrapolating from it.
Ives has a “Buy” rating on Apple shares. His price target on the shares is $200.
