SAN FRANCISCO (TheStreet) – DIRECTV (DTV) and the National Football League struck a deal to extend and expand the NFL Sunday Ticket agreement, the parties announced Wednesday. What this means for DIRECTV and AT&T (T) - Get Report investors is the mammoth mega-merger between the two can still go forward.

As you may recall, AT&T had a clause within its merger agreement that if DIRECTV was not successful in extending its longtime NFL Sunday Ticket agreement with the NFL, then AT&T might walk away from the $49 billion merger.

But, fortunately, DIRECTV and its investors didn't get sacked.

The NFL not only extended the exclusive Sunday Ticket agreement it had with DIRECTV to a new multi-year deal, but it also expanded its relationship with the company. Under the new agreement, DIRECTV will expand its right to stream NFL Sunday Ticket live on mobile devices and also broadband under the name of NFL Sunday Ticket.TV. Terms of the deal were not announced, but sports business reporter Darren Rovell stated the deal would be worth $1.5 billion over eight years.

AT&T stands to score on that arrangement, given the cellular company is all about mobile.

At the time of publication, the author held no positions in any of the stocks mentioned, although positions may change at any time.

This article is commentary by an independent contributor, separate from TheStreet's regular news coverage.

TheStreet Ratings team rates DIRECTV as a Hold with a ratings score of C+. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate DIRECTV (DTV) a HOLD. The primary factors that have impacted our rating are mixed ? some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its solid stock price performance, growth in earnings per share and increase in net income. However, as a counter to these strengths, we find that we feel that the company's cash flow from its operations has been weak overall."

You can view the full analysis from the report here: DTV Ratings Report