The National Football League has contractual television broadcast rights agreements with Walt Disney ($27 billion [ESPN/ABC]
Monday Night Football), FOX ($25 billion/Sunday NFC), Paramount ($23 billion [CBS] Sunday AFC), Comcast ($22 billion [NBC/Peacock]
Sunday Night Football), Alphabet ($14 billion [YouTube]
Sunday Ticket, and Amazon ($13 billion/
Thursday Night Football—totaling over $125 billion—from 2023 through 2032/2033 (
link).
Contracts vary in composition, but all can be summarized as follows:
• Offer – a service provided by one party (the NFL allowing their games to be broadcast in this instance)
• Acceptance – the agreement to the terms of the offeree (the networks consenting to the NFL’s specified broadcast packages)
• Consideration – what is considered as value for each party (NFL values billions of dollars and the networks values the audiences secured by each broadcasting package)
A fellow member stated the following condition, based upon the thread’s OP that was quoted with the reply:
This will backfire on them at some point as ratings will start dropping.
The Wall Street Journal thread article informed its readers of the
contractual agreement between Amazon and the NFL to broadcast a playoff game.
Per its contract with the league, Amazon
shall broadcast an x-number of playoff games, for the seasons specific in the contract, through and until 2033. Before replying, I had the following conclusion and assumption, respectively:
1. No party has ever broken a broadcasting rights contract between the NFL and networks in history
2. It is EXCEPTIONALLY unlikely that the league’s legal counsel agreed to any stipulation that provided an out for any network according to a variable as unknowingly foreseeable as an increase or decrease in ratings
With the above in consideration, I replied:
It will only backfire if the NFL cannot convince the networks to pony up more money each time their broadcast rights contracts expire.
Why? First, the networks are locked into their contract until either 2032 or 2033 (e.g., Comcast/NBC/Peacock in this instance). Second, a ratings decrease would contractually not ‘backfire’ for either the NFL or any of the networks streaming playoff games until that time. And third, any sustained ratings decrease incurred by any network would become either a contractual
renegotiation talking point or refusal for agreeing to the terms of a new contract
no sooner than 2033/2034 or later .
Afterwards, you read my original comment and replied:
you think they did all this without talking or planning?
pretty bold of you
Now, you may have an understanding of what I was talking about. While I certainly knew the league and networks’ legal counsels would evaluate and consider all the conceivable ramifications of a streaming playoff game…
In other words, I did comprehend there was extraordinary discussion and preparation between all the parties---just as it is
always the case…
Quite frankly, I have no clue what you think you thought I was thinking.
Please. I am guilty of being bold but enlighten
me why
I said what
I said.
ratings thru the roof.
