113 million people watched Super Bowl LVII according to early estimates from Nielsen, and while that number is staggering, former ESPN chairman John Skipper believes the NFL could someday do away with the free broadcast and move to a pay-per-view model.
“I assume that there are some number of people that’s the only game they watch the entire year, and they don’t want to be left out. That’s a pretty great place to be for a live event,” Skipper said on The Big Suey Podcast from The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz Wednesday.
“50% of the country does not want to be left out. It leads me to a slightly different discussion: if half the country is watching your game for free, how many of those people would pay a big sum of money to watch the game?”
When asked by Chris Whittingham if the NFL would ever just simply look at the financials and realize they could make much more money, Skipper said he believed the money could be too good to pass up.
“If you just assume half of the people (that) watched would still watch if it cost $250 for a household, you’re just gonna have bigger parties,” Skipper continued.
“I don’t know how many households — I assume its half the households who watched — if only a quarter of them are willing to pay $250 to have a party at their house, it would still get you into the billions of dollars for a single game, and that is the single best way I can think of for the NFL to increase their annual revenue stake for their clubs, is to make the Super Bowl a pay-per-view event.”
