PFT: NFL reportedly seeking to double broadcast right fees

BooBooBear said:

From what I've seen, sports are the only thing on TV that people most people insist on watching live. Everything else they record so they can watch at their leisure and skip the commercials. It seems like that in itself would add a lot of value.

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Coca Cola was the first to only advertise on live events. They conducted their own research and discovered on regular programming, with the the advance of the DVR, the time shifting and knowledge that a 30 minute program can be watched in 23 and a 60 minute one in 42 was shocking to them. The amount of time shifting, and avoiding commercials, was alarming.

I was still in advertising at the time and was working with one of the companies that conducted the research and they shared the results with me. We have one of the most ignorant and uninformed public's in the world but when it comes to knowing how to watch TV, we have no equal. The days of the VCR's blinking 00:00 all across this nation were over.

gimmesix said:

I would think the three other networks would push hard for it. Frankly, I'd be glad for it to be off ESPN, because I'm on antenna and don't get ESPN.

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$$$$, they can't make money with it.

TequilaCowboy said:

I think in these pandemic times, many people who are not hardcore fans have found there is more to life and entertainment than just football. Those skyrocketing ratings every year have made a turn downward on the graph. Will be very interesting to see what the networks have to say about those fees being doubled.

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You would think with a large portion of the season everyone forced to stay at home ratings for the NFL would be at all time highs but it was at lows this year. Some weeks it was way lower than past years. Even the playoffs had lower ratings. They claimed more for the Super Bowl because they added online broadcasting for the first time but this has been a thing for several years now. I've not watched any NFL games via cable since like 2014.

Love the sport hate the greed

From the something's got to give vault.

Agencies, unless advised otherwise by their clients, fix the price they will pay based on ratings points, the % of the demographic population as the CPP, Cost Per Point. If they have clients that want to be advertisers or sponsors of the NFL, that formula changes but it will not double. Fewer eyes on the ads, even if it is live TV, does not equate to paying double.

So, if a TV net is to renew it's package at double, what gives? Does the NFL offer more commercial breaks to the nets to cover the expense? Do the TV nets, if limited to the same commercial load, go the way of the :10 and :15 ad and play 50-100% more spots within the break? Research shows the length of the ads isn't near the negative that the number of ads are in all research and viewer fatigue becomes a problem.

The saving grace to the nets is the mighty promo. Fox, when they were a fledgling net, outbid CBS for the NFC for one main reason, to promote their programming to a larger audience outside the Fox viewership. If you notice, that model is followed by all the TV nets and is used as the cushion in justifying the expense. The largest audience that a TV net will have all week are the NFL broadcasts, they even have their announcers touting the programming.

Years ago, the President of NBC said no to the NFL because the expense could not be justified or recovered. They later returned and took on SNF after CBS took their AFC spot.

NickZepp said:

You would think with a large portion of the season everyone forced to stay at home ratings for the NFL would be at all time highs but it was at lows this year. Some weeks it was way lower than past years. Even the playoffs had lower ratings. They claimed more for the Super Bowl because they added online broadcasting for the first time but this has been a thing for several years now. I've not watched any NFL games via cable since like 2014.

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There are many theories about the decline but the one the NFL will not accept is that they are ruining the game on TV. The start/stop jerky presentation of the product causes me to drift and lose interest and it's not just commercial breaks.

Whatever happened to that time limit on ref reviews when they first instituted that part of the game? I happened to be timing something on my grill this past season and noted one review took 7 minutes to get the ball back into play.

Adreme said:

"Some" can say it all they want. Their salaries are set by the revenue the league makes. I would say that I would rather give the players salaries then the owners because at least they are taking a beating (and shortening their lives) playing football rather than sitting in a booth 3 hours a week 17-20 times a year.

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Exactly.
Blame the guys charging you or the guys entertaining you?
Seems easy unless you are a complete idiot right?
I blame players when they don't love the game or throwaway their talent for nonsense.
See David Irving.

I 100% side with any player who handles this professionally and want to be compensated at the highest possible rates for putting 110% into the effort to win games.

Good luck.

Bullflop said:

I think everyone involved in the NFL and its success need to consider the fact that it's time to consider the fans now.

Enough is enough. Pushing the fans beyond their ability to attend games has already surpassed good business.

Doubling the cost of TV rights could only serve to make the owners push their patrons into dissolving their interest.

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I’m not being snarky but why would asking the broadcast partners to pay more impact fans? Maybe they can reduce ticket prices since the main revenue is TV. I know they won’t. I’m not sure why posters are trying to protect the TV networks, it’s called supply and demand. If they won’t pay it, the price will come down. If it’s a bidding war, the price will go up. CBS, Fox and NBC aren’t pushing back too much from what I have read. Pro Football is better than the trash they currently show and gets more eyes on their commercials

Reality said:

As the product gets worse and worse every year on the field, the NFL wants to charge more to watch it.

That sounds like a flawed business plan to me ..

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The product. Keep in mind that young people today didn't grow up in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. They grew up in this century and don't see the difference.

KingintheNorth said:

It's gotten worse?

Based on what metric?

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In my opinion, the product on the field is not as good as last century. It was slow going so you don't notice it. That is until you go back and watch some old games. It's not that the players are worse, the rule changes and salary cap contribute a lot to it. We don't see anymore great teams. Talent is thinned out due to the cap. Aggressive pursuit and gang tackling is discouraged due to fear of a penalty and fine. But if you grew up this century or was born sometime in the 90s, you're not going to see a difference.

KingintheNorth said:

It's gotten worse?

Based on what metric?

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I don’t get that sentiment at all when I hear it here. The NFL product is bad? The NFL has the most parity of any league in major sports plus the QB play is at its best all time.

Maybe it’s an age thing maybe not but all the people I know my age are as excited about the NFL game now as we ever were.

DakPresgoat said:

I think this is right.

Network TV in general is hurting.

streaming, etc is the future.

so the decline in traditional ratings is tied to that.

NFL’s long term future is in streaming, it’s in gambling, it’s in interactive gaming like fantasy football the the ads and stuff sold off that.

it’s not traditional network TV

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Yep. Look at what boxing has done, and they started that a long time ago. The NFL might follow suit in some fashion if they feel there's more money in it than the networks.

DakPresgoat said:

I think this is right.

Network TV in general is hurting.

streaming, etc is the future.

so the decline in traditional ratings is tied to that.

NFL’s long term future is in streaming, it’s in gambling, it’s in interactive gaming like fantasy football the the ads and stuff sold off that.

it’s not traditional network TV

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Bingo

Reality said:

As the product gets worse and worse every year on the field, the NFL wants to charge more to watch it.

That sounds like a flawed business plan to me ..

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exactly

817Gill said:

I don’t get that sentiment at all when I hear it here. The NFL product is bad? The NFL has the most parity of any league in major sports plus the QB play is at its best all time.

Maybe it’s an age thing maybe not but all the people I know my age are as excited about the NFL game now as we ever were.

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I don't doubt you. If your age is mid 20s, how could you know? Just like how would you know there was a time not too long before you were born that it was really easy to get a good paying job right out of high school? And I mean real easy. You wouldn't unless you lived through the changes. Yes there's parity, but no more great teams. For example. A team like to 2013 Seahawks was around every year. Multiple ones. Better ones. That's what I miss. Parity due to talent being thinned out.

817Gill said:

I don’t get that sentiment at all when I hear it here. The NFL product is bad? The NFL has the most parity of any league in major sports plus the QB play is at its best all time.

Maybe it’s an age thing maybe not but all the people I know my age are as excited about the NFL game now as we ever were.

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QB play is at it's best....This alone should be enough for you to realize that maybe what you see isn't what you believe.

I'm in California and I'm forced to have Directv cause of the Sunday ticket. I called the other day cause my bill had increased to $180. I was talking to the agent and asking him about all the channels that are now streaming their own content. Discovery streams all their new shows but you have to pay for their service on top of already paying Directv. I believe Paramount is starting to do the same. It's gonna be pointless to have any satellite service here soon.

Flamma said:

I don't doubt you. If your age is mid 20s, how could you know? Just like how would you know there was a time not too long before you were born that it was really easy to get a good paying job right out of high school? And I mean real easy. You wouldn't unless you lived through the changes. Yes there's parity, but no more great teams. For example. A team like to 2013 Seahawks was around every year. Multiple ones. Better ones. That's what I miss. Parity due to talent being thinned out.

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Yeah with all those top heavy greats you had a bunch of meh and trash. I would much rather see 18 teams who could conceivably make a run than 4.

It’s simply a matter of preference and happens in every sport. Every single major sport is currently or has gone through changes with the times, and not politically but with styles of play. From the 80’s/90’s to 2000’s to the 2010’s, every sport has undergone a stylistic change.

The current styles of play, growth in amount of teams who can win, and player personalities are preferred for a younger audience. I don’t think the majority of viewers age 15-25 would want to go back to any previous styles. Just as 15-25 year olds 30 years ago probably didn’t want to go back to how it was 30 years before that.

coult44 said:

This is proof people have no idea of how hard it is to be a successful businessman. If you think all there is to owning a team is to sit in a booth you need to quit watching football and go into the real world.

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Many people do not know what it takes to run any kind of business. Even a mom and pop corner store type business.

And selling Girl Scout cookie do not count as running a business.