At this point, you probably already know that the NFL is attempting to renegotiate its broadcast deals mid-way through its current contracts. Once regulators approved the NFL’s swap of the NFL Network (and other assets) for equity in ESPN, commissioner Roger Goodell and co. went to work on getting their current broadcast partners to accept price hikes.
CNBC reported earlier this month that CBS is willing to pay 50 percent more for the same inventory (the NFL is asking for 60 percent) in exchange for the NFL to eliminate its opt-out clause, which it has an option to exercise after the 2029 season. Eliminating the opt-out would mean that the NFL would be on the channel through at least the 2033 season.
Those extra four years could be a pretty big deal for over-the-air stations, as the NFL seemingly wants to lean into the streaming world more and more. That’s one point of leverage that the NFL has.
Another point of leverage, proposed by Awful Announcing this week, is that the league could give broadcast partners who do not accept a renegotiated price worse games. Per Awful Announcing, ESPN isn’t happy that Thursday Night Football on Prime Video, a streaming platform, is getting a better package of games than the Monday Night Football slate. So just because CBS is willing to pay the 50 to 60 percent broadcast fee increase doesn’t necessarily mean that every broadcast partner will.
Fox’s CEO Lachlan Murdoch also had the following to say about the company’s NFL contract earlier this month:
We think we’re paying, you know, a market price for the NFL today. The prices were renegotiated only 3 years ago. They went up, I think, over 100% 3 years ago. We think our current pricing is at market. To the extent that there was any incremental cost for that NFL programming, I think the key thing for people to realize, that incremental cost would flow through to local affiliates, to our distributors, and ultimately, to consumers and the fans.
It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out. The NFL sure seems confident that it can just increase prices mid-way through its current agreements, but the only broadcast partner that reportedly wants to pay 50 percent in exchange for the league dropping its opt-out is CBS. As a reminder, all of this broadcast deal drama started because NBC is now paying more for Sunday Night Basketball ($2.45 billion per year) than Sunday Night Football ($2 billion per year), according to Andrew Marchand and John Ourand, who cover the business of sports. Seeing NBC’s numbers for their NBA deal apparently motivated NFL ownership to start asking for more.
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