 Very quietly over the weekend, the NFL formalized the announcement that it was retaining the coveted late-season eight-game package that Comcast had been eyeing for some time. The announcement came via a New York Times story on Saturday, and has percolated around the mainstream media in a quiet sports weekend. But coverage has left many, many dots unconnected, so let’s get right to the meat of the matter.
And remember, all scoops are not what they seem. Thanks to the scoops at BenMiller.com, the internet had whiffs of this story two weeks ago, leading to our speculations here about the possible ramifications for such a move. So every time you read one of the lead paragraphs on this story and it suggests something about how the NFL “spontaneously decided” to go against the grain or make such an unprecedented move, hold it with just a bit of skepticism: if nothing else, the BenMiller scoop proves that this announcement was in the works for some time.
This story has been jumped on by some of the preeminent sports media writers in the country, including Sandomir in The Times, Michael Hiestand at USA Today, and Stefan Fatsis at The Wall Street Journal. Each of them cover the bases well: the NFL has clearly decided that growing its own media distribution channel was more important that the standalone revenue check from Comcast (Sandomir had previously estimated at $400 million); the NFL doesn’t feel like dealing with pressure from any more distribution channels, and sees this as an opportunity to capatult the NFL network (with no small amount of Playmakers-free coverage) into the highest levels of cable distribution.
But there are questions and conclusions that each of these writers is either unwilling or unable to ask and draw. Fatsis implies that the NFL is only the second of the major leagues – behind the NBA – to develop its own proprietary distribution service. This is factually incorrect; while Major League Baseball does not collectively own a cable channel, individual teams, like the Cleveland Indians and New York Yankees have begun launching their own regional cable networks. Furthermore, the rampant success of Major League Baseball Advanced Media, MLB’s somewhat-secretive online distribution arm, is clearly a model for what the NFL is trying to achieve. By developing its own distribution channel, it not only maintains ideological control over its content, but horizontally leverages itself against the ups and downs of league popularity.
Which brings us to the meat of the matter: we are just over a month away from the beginning of NFL Free Agency (March 3), and the NFL and NFLPA are no closer to signing a new Collective Bargaining Agreement than they were three months ago. Tagliabue now brings to the table the fact that he has just cut players out of their stake in a $400 million revenue check (NFL media rights are negotiated collectively and shared between all franchises, per the league’s original revenue-sharing agreement).
Which is not to say that the players are getting cut out of the pot. One presumes that the surging revenues from NFL.com (as all of your local cable operators rush to subscribe) will be put back in to the revenue-sharing pot. But again, that pot is currently under dispute as the CBA talks go nowhere, and, just as with MLBAM, the NFL has zero transparency here: we can’t see inside this deal, they don’t have to show us anything. There is no indication or documentation of how revenue from the NFL Network is getting distributed amongst teams, or how the players fare in such a deal.
Nevertheless, it seems foolhardly, if not irresponsible, to ignore the obvious correlation between the CBA talks – which we persist in underreporting – and this announcement. And here’s the irony of it: if the NFL wants to be its own broadcast arm, then maybe some of the timid sports journalists who seem scared to confront its realities will come out of their shells. But that’s too dreamy, and too far down the road.
In the short term, it’s worth mentioning that this is great news for ESPN. Even though it pushes the NFL Network somewhere nearer to the level of cable-channel stratosphere usually reserved only for Bristol, the rumors seem to have vanished that the NFL was actually thinking of launching its own all-sports channel. Instead, for ESPN, this is just one more reason why Comcast can’t compete, and that’s a good day. |
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