http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/nov2002/nf2002118_4205.htm Yes to Arena Football, NASCAR and the Olympics. No to just about everything else. Wonder why they didn't go after MLS... Speaking of Arenaball, their minor league, af2, is losing franchises like Al Roker loses pounds. http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/110802/spo_10917417.shtml 34 teams last year. Fresno, Carolina, Roanoke, Augusta, New Haven, Pensacola, Tallahassee and Jacksonville are either gone or have one foot in the grave.
Can't sell enough ad time as with Arena Football, NASCAR, and the Olympics. Not as highly rated as Arena Football, NASCAR, and the Olympics. I'm interested to see if Fox has truly seen the light with respect to broadcast rights fees. They're saying the right things right now, but what will they be saying when their NFL and MLB deals expire in a few years? It looks as if ABC is really the only broadcast network that can truly support the high rights fees that they're doling out, and even that's only because ESPN is buying the time on ABC for the NBA and NHL. ESPN can then turn around and stick it to the cable and satellite providers for ever-increasing transmission fees. I guess that it's good to be the king.
Kenn: thanks for the link; that's an interesting article about NBC's philosophy, which could perhaps be summed up as "GE doesn't want any red in any category of our operations." Great line about Al Roker. Fine website you have there also sir (www.kenn.com). Tony
Re: Re: Inside NBC's thinking on TV sports Duh. It will be interesting to see the future of sports on TV. The NBA, in this economy, was able to get a modest rights fee bump (though we don't know all the ins and outs of it, but they announced a slight increase) but had to shift the bulk of its programming to cable. As cable continues to proliferate (except for y'all down there in Dallas, of course), it'll be interesting to see if eventually we stop thinking about there being much of a difference between broadcast and cable and it just becomes "TV". NFL viewership is up, but will it continue to be up when the deals with the networks are up (after the 2005 season, isn't it?)? If the NFL continues to deliver the most viewers of any team sport, they'll get money. Someone may say now they won't do it, but when push comes to shove, I'd be surprised if the most desirable sports programming out there has to go hat in hand to the networks. Fox has four years to go on the baseball thing, right? They've already written off a ton of money on that deal. With labor peace for a while, MLB is a slightly more attractive property, and the World Series is still the World Series, even if it sets new lows for World Series ratings every year. I have no idea when the NHL deal runs through, but Gary Bettman is apparently intent on a work stoppage to get their house in order here at some point. Thanks, Tony.
Re: Re: Re: Inside NBC's thinking on TV sports I believe it's summer 2005. What's more, is that I believe this current contract is an extension of the last one.
Re: Re: Re: Inside NBC's thinking on TV sports Although I don't have any hard numbers in front of me, I suspect that cable penetration in Dallas-Ft. Worth is rising, although it continues to lag the rest of the country. On the other hand, it gets us a zillion broadcast channels. But it will be complicated by NFL Sunday Ticket. Apparently, CBS and Fox affiliates aren't exactly jazzed by potential viewers' watching games on NFL Sunday Ticket instead of their channels. They tolerate it right now because of DirecTV exclusivity, but they've already talked the NFL into blacking out the Sunday Ticket games in Seattle and Pittsburgh that the local affiliates are showing. But cable wants to get its hands on Sunday Ticket, so I'm sure that the NFL will go to CBS and Fox and say "Cough up the dough or else we start selling Sunday Ticket to InDemand, DirecTV, DISH Network, or anyone else that pays for it." If the networks balk, then we might see Sunday Ticket on both DirecTV and digital cable, since DirecTV is already willing to pay the $400 million a year for it because it sells a bunch of dishes and digital cable is willing to pay the money to keep people from jumping to satellite. DISH Network would likely pass because they're notoriously cheap and wouldn't pay the hundreds of millions that it would take. (But since they make money and DirecTV doesn't, you could argue that they're also smart.) But Fox might say, "It's great, but it's too expensive." CBS isn't going to go for it, since they remember their last baseball deal too vividly. NBC isn't going for it. Which leaves Disney. More specifically, it leaves ESPN, who already has the exclusive cable rights for national telecasts, to swoop in and buy the over-the-air rights, which they would put on ABC by buying time. Part of the deal would likely mean more cable games at the expense of broadcast games and ESPN would likely farm those out to ABC Family. In other words, MLB would get the NBA and NHL treatment: Lots of national cable games, not many national broadcast games. Which is pretty much the reason why so many owners are looking to jump ship.
18 Billion for NFL rights for eight years. Is that a typo or I am seeing green, I am sure MLS would happy with only 5 million a year from ESPN. I hate American footy.
But most Americans don't. Neither do most soccer liking Americans. Part of that 18 Billion goes to men like Lamar Hunt and Robert Kraft.
It's real simple, folks. If the network is paying the league (or whatever) for broadcast rights, the network will promote the hell out of the program so they can recoup their investment with advertising revenue. If the league is paying the newtork to broadcast its games, then the network already has their money and couldn't give a rat's arse about promotion. Soccer does not lend itself to commercial breaks, so the possibilities for ad-based revenue are limited. It's gonna take time.
I can't believe people missed this from the BusinessWeek article: This is probably the only way we'll see MLS on NBC as well. Sachin
Won't see them anywhere but ABC/ESPN until 2007, right? But time-buys are proliferating, that's for sure.
The one caveat with time-buys is that money doesn't always talk- I think this isn't news to a lot of folks here, but it still is something that needs to be noted: simply being able to "show the money" doesn't mean you get on the air; there is a point of diminishing returns in continuing to sell time for programming that can't even draw a full rating point.
So, given the affiliate question, does that mean that a time buy on ESPN or a local FSN makes more sense for MLS or the NBA for that matter than a time buy on a network? I know it depends on the economics and dozens of other factors. Tony
The AFL deal is far more complicated than a straight time buy. Basically, the league sold their soul to NBC for exposure. From the official press release: The historic multi-year deal agreement calls for NBC to share in the revenues derived from the increasing value of AFL franchises, carries no rights payment and renews in perpetuity at NBC’s option. http://www.arenafootball.com/team/league_pressreleases.cfm?cont_id=98840 Basically, NBC is betting that franchises will increase in value because of their involvement. If they do, the league gets the money the league paid for the time buy and a percentage of franchise sales over $12M per transaction. If franchise values don't rise, NBC pockets the cash for the time buy and terminates the deal at their leisure. So the league, which just had the NFL passing on a permanent equity stake, is now paying someone to broadcast their games in hopes that the exposure will pay off in greater revenues. Oh, and they totally changed their schedule for the "honor" to be on NBC.
While past performance is certainly no indicator of future performance, AFL franchise values have increased substantially over the last several years. Whether they will continue to do so is something NBC is obviously hoping (as well as the guys who currently own them). The AFL spin is that the major reason they pursued the NFL buy-in was to get a network TV deal, and they got that without the NFL buying in, so once they got in bed (or the chair, or the futon, or wherever they are letting NBC have their way) with NBC, they no longer needed the NFL. As for me, I'd rather take my chances with the NFL having a piece of me than the shareholders of General Electric, but if they feel this deal is a win-win for them (it's certainly going to get them lots of potential exposure, but whether it will get them actual exposure we'll have to see), then God bless 'em. Not only did they shift their season up by a couple of months to start right after the Super Bowl, but they've put a lot (forget the percentage, but it's big) of their games on Sunday afternoons to be available for TV, and not a lot at all on Saturday nights. I'll wait to see the numbers, but I'd have some trepidation about that one. They've been hovering between 9-10k per game as a league for a few years now, and if their ticket sales drop as a result of playing on Sunday afternoons, that could hurt them. But, hey, at least they'll be on TV all the time. Worked for the XFL.
For the big events, I would say no. Also you really need to see what percentage of affilates (and which markets) are actually deciding to pre-empt your broadcast. And as the FCC laws continue to favor larger network ownership of local stations, this may not be so critical; bad for our democracy, perhaps better for soccer, as a network could force the programming on the affiliates. I know when Disney bought Cap-Cities, they got 10 stations in the deal. Maybe someone has a more current number on the number of Disney-owned affiliates, and what markets they are in.
When the latest TV deal was announced, Garber made a big deal out of it being "non-exclusive". I took that to mean that the league was free to put games on other networks. That hasn't happened yet, but I think it is possible under the current deal.
I thought the cable part of it was non-exclusive (memory may fail me here), but the broadcast part was not (you'd think it wouldn't be). Yes, network affiliates aren't obligated to clear network programming, but, as a matter of course, they usually will unless it's a low-rated program that they can't make money off (if they have something else they can put in that timeslot and generate revenue from...like, say, Georgia Southern's football coach's show), or that there'll be a hue and cry from the populace about (and we know that there's rarely enough outcry from soccer people to make a difference). Generate ratings and you generate revenue. Generate revenue and you can get things done. And if you could generate enough outcry when you get screwed, you'd think you could generate enough ratings to not get screwed in the first place.
Garber on the exclusivity aspect of the deal: "The MLS agreement is exclusive with ABC. It is not exclusive with ESPN. We do have the opportunity to find a new home for 'MLS E************************'. We are exploring that. We also have the opportunity for other games that we might want to air. We do have some open windows." http://www.mlsnet.com/content/01/mls0102teleconference.html
Ty Votaw who heads the LPGA has an interesting take on TV, time-buys, and how they have built exposure: