How much terrestrial television are you watching that isn’t sports or news these days? The average American still watches a decent bit of broadcast and cable programming, but we aren’t average Americans. We are in the media industry. I bet the numbers are a little different for us.
The numbers are also probably different if you took a group of lawyers, doctors, construction workers, teachers, stock brokers, and truck drivers and then took a group of our colleagues and asked “where do you find Thursday Night Football?”.
I do a lot of radio hits talking about media topics. I am always careful to make sure that the host I am speaking with understands this reality. No, not everyone knows where to watch the Vikings and Eagles on Thursday night in week 2 of the NFL season.
These people and this reality were on my mind on Monday when I clicked a link on our site to see George Pyne discussing the reality facing ESPN. Tech companies will always be able to outbid cable networks for media rights contracts.
Maybe there is a league who just wants the pay day. MLS owners clearly valued money and security over access when it signed a deal to take all of its local inventory off of cable and put it behind a paywall on Apple TV+.
Major League Soccer is experiencing tremendous growth and hype, but come on. It is still miles behind the NHL, which is miles behind the other three major American professional sports leagues. Making it easy for fans to see your games is more important to the NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball than one more billion.
Pyne prophecizes that will lead to more joint deals. We won’t see something like what ESPN has with the SEC in the future. No one place will own all of a league’s inventory because the unlimited money isn’t coming from the companies with the most reach.
I want to throw another idea out there. What if instead of cooperation, the future c-word on the lips of sports media is consolidation?
The cable bundle may be going the way of the dodo, but the true death of cable isn’t on the immediate horizon. Rather than split inventory with ESPN, FOX or anyone else, if you are Apple or Amazon and really looking to throw your weight around in the sports world, why wouldn’t you start a conversation to acquire one of these networks?
As in any business deal, the answer to the question “does that make sense?” will only become clear with math.
Can Amazon make more money by offering advertisers access to more NFL inventory? Yes.
Can Amazon get more NFL inventory by buying a network that already has a deal with the NFL? Yes?
Can Amazon make enough money on that advertising inventory to offset the cost of buying that network? That is the answer that matters most, but I suspect the answer is also yes.
It seems a little counterintuitive, right? This is the age of traditional media companies investing in streaming. Disney launched ESPN+ and then Disney+. Discovery Warner Bros. launched Max. No one can turn back time. Trying to doesn’t make sense.
Event television is largely a thing of the past. The days of more than 76 million people tuning into NBC for a series finale of any show are over. People work on their own schedules now.
Sports and news are the only event television left. Case in point, more than 115 million people tuned into Super Bowl LVII in February, making it the most-watched television program of all time. In order to have event television, you need events. You get one every two or four years with news. You get multiple every year with sports.
Entertainment television thrives on niches. That is a model streaming services can take full advantage of. Sports are still big tent programming. They have the ability to drive populations to their televisions as a community. Broadcast and cable networks are still able to take advantage of that in a way streamers cannot.
As Pyne points out, these tech companies see their bottom lines continue to grow. Why would an investment in current market conditions, no matter how short term make sense as Apple and Amazon continue to flex their muscles in the sports world?
Demetri Ravanos is a former columnist and editor for Barrett Media. He is the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host of 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.
