There will of course be some overlap, but ESPN intends to maintain the look and feel of NFL Network if its acquisition of the league-branded channel is approved.
ESPN and NFL Network talent will “flow in both directions” in the event that Disney’s acquisition of NFL Media properties is approved, but the league-specific channel will nonetheless maintain its unique voice, ESPN president of content Burke Magnus told Jimmy Traina on the latest “SI Media” podcast. “We don’t want to blend them to such a degree that their identities start to meld,” Magnus said, “I think the NFL Network has a very different brand and a very different voice in many ways, and we think that we like that, we think that’s important.”
Magnus specifically mentioned as an example the competing NFL Draft productions on ESPN and NFL Network.
While ESPN has taken a hands-off approach in licensing content like “The Pat McAfee Show” and the TNT-produced “Inside the NBA,” Disney will be assuming full ownership of NFL Network when and if the deal is approved. As a result, there will necessarily be some changes, with Magnus saying that the goal will be to combine “the best of what they do and the best of what we do” in what he hopes will be a “1+1=3” scenario.
He specifically praised the NFL Network morning show “Good Morning Football” as the channel’s “greatest success story” and called it an “exciting proposition” to determine “what that looks like going forward and how they can contribute to what we do and vice versa.”
Striking that balance will be no easy task given the number of concerns already voiced on social media about ESPN altering the NFL Media properties it is set to acquire. ESPN was widely — and falsely — blamed for NFL RedZone abandoning its commercial-free format earlier this year, despite the fact that Disney is not acquiring RedZone as part of the deal. (The NFL will continue to own and produce RedZone, with Disney acquiring only the name itself and linear distribution rights.)
It is likely that even the mere presence of ESPN personalties like Adam Schefter — himself a one-time NFL Network regular — will be polarizing, to say nothing of any hypothetical cameos by Stephen A. Smith.
But that problem is a bit down the road, as the Disney-NFL Media acquisition still has to be approved by government regulators. In the meantime, there are “gun jumping provisions” preventing ESPN from influencing NFL Media, Magnus said.
As far as that regulatory process, Magnus said that there is no specific timeline for when that approval might be won, and that the length of the process will necessarily impact whether any of the changes in the agreement — including changes to ESPN and NFL Network game inventory, including the end of “Monday Night Football” doubleheaders — go into effect next season. Should the process drag on beyond the NFL schedule release in May, ESPN and NFL Network inventory will be unchanged for next season.
