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Casey Bloys vs. Cindy Holland, a “Darwinian zero-sum face-off?” Hey, nobody ever called us hyperbolic, third-rate newsletter hucksters before, at least until we crystalized that nomenclature for them. (You’re welcome!) Enjoy our latest podcast.
Will the NFL’s drive for a 100% national TV rights spike get stuffed by media consolidation and Big Tech hyper-scaler ambition?
“It’s more than likely that most big league sports properties are not going to do as well in the next round of national TV deals …”
With the NBA negotiating a $76 billion national TV rights package two years ago, conventional wisdom suggested the NFL has huge leverage, not only to command a huge rights-fee increase when its current array of 11-year deals expire after the 2033 season, but even well before that, with the league controlling opt-out provisions after the 2029 campaign.
In April, CNBC NFL insider Alex Sherman reported that the league was looking for a 100% bump on the $110 billion deal package it signed back in 2021.
And incumbent media companies including Disney, Fox, Paramount and NBCUniversal will have to find a way to underwrite that massive increase, or lose their place on the sideline to Amazon, Google and Apple, which will support the loss-leader economics of such a mega-deal. … Or so the narrative goes.
Sports media consultant Patrick Crakes sees the scenario unfolding very differently. He wonders if the same collapse of bundled economics that just took down the regional sports network model might also come for nationally televised live sports.
