The NFL and ESPN are reportedly resuming talks about the sports programming network taking control over parts of NFL Media, according to a report by John Ourand of PUCK Media. According to the report the parameters of a deal would give full control to ESPN over the NFL Network and NFL RedZone including other league assets, which would boost ESPN’s talks with distributors and be a key piece of the network’s looming launch of their direct-to-consumer product entitled “Flagship.”
ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro shared last November that the plan is to launch the “Flagship” product in the fall of 2025.
“We are going to do so with significant product enhancements, and so we have a team of world-class engineers and product people that are working on this every single day, and I’m meeting with them almost every single day,” Pitaro shared at the ESPN Edge Conference attended by Barrett Media. “This is one of my passion areas is ‘product,’ and I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited than anything I’ve been attached to or worked on, primarily because I’m a sports fan, and everything I’m seeing from the team is resonating with me as a sports fan.”
While Ourand states in the report that it’s till too early to predict whether or not an official deal will be struck, these discussions reportedly began back in January of 2024 that took a pause in September. The NFL may opt out it’s current agreement with Disney following the 2028-2029 season, so making an agreement now would benefit ESPN with more NFL content for it’s already vast host of live 24/7 channels and the league with finding a suitor to take hold of some assets which have not performed as well as originally thought.
Overall the NFL saw a 2.2% ratings decline for the 2024 season despite 70 NFL games being in the top 100 broadcasts in the United States. The overall average viewership per game however does not include games broadcast on Peacock, ESPN+ or international games broadcast on the NFL Network. FOX Sports announced Monday night that Super Bowl LIX between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs averaged 126 million viewers with a peak average of 135.7 million viewers between 8:00-8:15pm ET.
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