NFL to Show Eight Games on Its Own Cable Network
Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The National Football League said it will show eight regular-season games on its cable-television channel on Thursday and Saturday nights starting next season.
The package will consist of primetime games from Thanksgiving to the end of the regular season, Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said in a statement. The first telecast on the two-year- old network is scheduled for the night of Nov. 23 as part of a new Thanksgiving Day triple-header, he said.
The move to televise games on the league's own network came after talks ended to place them on Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp.'s OLN network or a new sports channel, the Wall Street Journal said on its Web site, citing unidentified people familiar with the talks. Comcast spokeswoman D'Arcy Rudnay declined to comment.
``After discussing this new package of games with many potential partners, we decided it would be best presented on our own, high-quality NFL Network, which has developed so rapidly that the time had come to add live regular season games to the programming,'' Tagliabue said.
The NFL Network currently can be seen in 35 million of the 90 million U.S. households with cable television, and will continue to make its games available on free television in participating team markets. There are 110.2 million U.S. households with televisions.
Comcast
Comcast, the No. 1 U.S. cable operator, has been attempting to transform OLN into a traditional sports network from one that focuses on outdoor sports such as fishing and cycling. Comcast has a two-year agreement to show National Hockey League games on OLN, and adding NFL games would have helped OLN to challenge rival ESPN, television executives have said.
Placing the eight games on its own channel also means the NFL will sacrifice revenue it could have made from selling broadcast rights.
``In the end, we wanted these games on our network,'' Tagliabue said.
By showing live games, the NFL Network's value will probably rise as it becomes more attractive to cable operators, whose customers will clamor to see it, said Marc Ganis, president of Chicago-based Sportscorp Ltd., a consulting firm.
``The cable operators are going to be compelled to carry the NFL network,'' Ganis said in a telephone interview. ``Their subscribers want NFL programming. They will be heard loudly if the cable companies provide niche channels with gardening shows and not the NFL Network.''
Fees
The NFL Network currently shows football-related programming without carrying live games.
``It was decided after surveying the rapidly evolving media landscape that a year-round channel dedicated to our sport was the best way to continue to develop and serve our fan base,'' NFL Network President Steve Bornstein said in a statement.
Rather than collect fees from broadcast networks such as General Electric Co.'s NBC or Walt Disney Co.'s ABC and ESPN, the NFL channel will generate revenue from cable-subscriber fees and advertising. The dual revenue gives networks such as ESPN an advantage over traditional networks that rely only on advertising.
The NFL will probably ask operators to put the channel on basic cable, meaning all cable customers would get it, Ganis said. The NFL Network will be seen in more than 50 million homes within a year, he said.
``The key is to get on basic,'' Ganis said. ``We'll see a dramatic rise in the number of homes that the NFL Network reaches.''
Ganis declined to say how much the NFL might charge operators for the channel. ESPN, the most expensive basic cable channel, gets about $2.82 per subscriber per month from operators.
The league begins new broadcasting contracts next season that will give NBC Sunday night games, taking over from ESPN. ESPN will show Monday night games in place of ABC.
Disney, based in Burbank, California, is paying $8.9 billion over eight years, while Fairfield, Connecticut-based General Electric's portion of the contract for six years costs $3.6 billion.
CBS Corp.'s CBS, News Corp.'s Fox and DirecTV also show NFL games. CBS and Fox are paying a combined $8 billion over six years for Sunday afternoon games. DirecTV is paying $3.5 billion to show games on satellite television over the next five years.
The NFL might sell a minority stake in its channel to another network, said former CBS Sports executive Neal Pilson, declining to identify potential buyers. That would be similar to the National Basketball Association, which sold a minority stake in its TV network to New York-based Time Warner Inc.
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