You’re going to read this and think I am mocking Damon Amendolara. I am not. I like his show and I think he is a talented broadcaster. But the segment he did on Tuesday morning bemoaning the NFL’s lack of concern for its fans was either poor acting or the most naive thing I have ever heard.
I get the average fan being upset that a playoff game is going behind a paywall to become a Peacock exclusive. It is a big change and does feel like a betrayal. But DA is in the sports media business. You probably are too if you’re reading this.
We all know the deal, right? The NFL and every other league, be they a major professional league or a college conference, don’t view Joe Six Pack as their customer. The networks are their customers.
Sure, fans go to games and pay for tickets, souvenirs and refreshments. Tens of thousands of people doing that multiple times over the course of a season adds up. It’s not like the fans are not important, but no fan can swoop in and say “I’ll give you $110 million for a single game.”
What is good for fans is less important to team owners and school presidents than what is good for networks. How is that news to anyone in this business? In 2023, it really shouldn’t even be news to the fans.
This isn’t solely an NFL problem. The NHL and MLS both completed media rights deals in recent years that force their respective fan bases to invest in a way they never had to before in order to see every game they may want to. The Big Ten has a deal that will see eight Peacock exclusive football games this season.
Just wait to see what the NBA does. The league wants to make $75 billion in its next media rights deal. Don’t you think a part of the path to getting there is going to be dangling a package of exclusive games to streamers?
Maybe the NFL Playoffs are sacred in this country in a way the rest of the sports calendar is not, but we did not break any new ground last week with the deal between the league and Peacock. Just ask Chris Russo how he feels about Apple TV+’s deal with Major League Baseball. Fans of every sport have a legitimate complaint about some of the games they used to be able to watch either for free or with their basic cable subscription now being inaccessible without shelling out an additional eight to fifteen dollars per month.
To me, there is an obvious question to ask and it isn’t “why?”. It’s “what’s next?”.
Nothing brings us to the television in real time the way major news and sporting events do. The NFL’s ratings prove that. It’s why the league can demand the kind of prices it does for its media rights. Rather than prioritize those old school Nielsen numbers that they can flash in front of networks and other advertising partners, team owners decided to see just how far they can push the fans.
Can exclusive rights to one of the league’s early playoff contests do for Peacock what the Premier League and one of Notre Dame’s guaranteed victories cannot? If there is anything that is going to make that service a must-have for sports fans, the NFL postseason is it,
Now, that proverbial seal is broken.
So, why wouldn’t the Pac-12 be a prime candidate to put the bulk of its best football and basketball games on a streaming service? Why would the NBA bat an eye if Warner Bros. Discovery says that in order to get to the number the league wants, a select number of playoff games will have to be MAX exclusives? As the RSN model falls apart, why wouldn’t a team in Major League Baseball, the NHL or the NBA do a local media rights deal with Amazon? The Yankees already do it for a portion of the season. What if another team with a big national profile like the Atlanta Braves or St. Louis Cardinals looked at that and decided they could be a little bit bolder?
I don’t love the NFL’s deal with Peacock, and admittedly, it is hard to deny that it upends the status quo for sports consumption. I’m not shocked by it though. Weirdly, those thoughts can co-exist in my mind.
It also isn’t a shortsighted move. NFL owners are doing what any good business people would. They are pushing the market as far as they can to see what it can bear.
For them, the market is the networks and platforms willing to spend on NFL football exclusivity. If viewership drops below an acceptable level, that is the networks’ problem. The public is their customer base, not the league’s.
Demetri Ravanos is a columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. He is also the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host on the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
