ESPN is getting aggressive with the NFL according to Andrew Marchand of The New York Post. Even as the rest of the Walt Disney Company looks to change the way it does business, ESPN is still eyeing spending billions on play-by-play rights for football.
Marchand’s story says that ESPN is prepared not only to make the argument that it deserves better games on Monday nights and more playoff inventory because it pays the most to carry the NFL, but the network also has designs on usurping NBC for the Sunday Night Football deal.
Parent company Disney is dedicated to the idea of getting ABC back into the Super Bowl rotation. Might that require ABC to carry Sunday Night Football? If so, ESPN needs to be willing to spend beyond the $2 billion it pays for Monday Night Games.
It is easy to understand ESPN’s complaint. At $2 billion, it gets Monday Night Football and one playoff game. Meanwhile, NBC pays just $950 million. That buys Sunday Night Football, a spot in the Super Bowl rotation, and two playoff games. Plus, Sunday Night Football has the advantage of flex scheduling to ensure that NBC is carrying the biggest game every Sunday.
Just how far Disney is willing to go to get ABC in the Super Bowl rotation remains to be seen. Remember, every NFL television package is up for grabs. That means that even if ABC doesn’t lans Sunday Night Football, it could still find its way into the Super Bowl rotation by scoring the media rights to a Sunday afternoon package of games. It could also mean that if ABC lands the Sunday Night Football rights that NBC could come back into the conversation by getting rights to games on in a different window.
The current TV agreements for the NFL expire after the Super Bowl in 2023. In addition to linear television networks, the NFL anticipates digital giants like Apple and Amazon will be part of the next bidding process for exclusive NFL media rights.
ESPN also gets the Draft, plus the Pro Bowl, as well as the use of NFL branding on daily shows such as “NFL Live.” As well as programing like ” NFL Prime Time” and NFL Rewind. They also have Sunday afternoon games on radio as well as Monday night games on ESPN Deportes. Plus they get the rights to international broadcasts. They may only have one game a week and not be in rotation for the Superbowl but they pay twice as much as NBC because of all the shoulder programing they carry.