The on-again, off-again, on-again, off-again negotiations between ESPN and the NFL over NFL Network and other NFL Media rights are on again. Until they’re off again.
It feels different this time. Sports Business Journal recently reported that the owners have gotten notice of a possible special meeting next month on the issue. Andrew Marchand of TheAthletic.com now reports that the deal is “inside the five yard line.”
Which means the deal isn’t done. Which also means that the deal likely isn’t done in large part because the NFL wants from the four-letter network one important four-letter word: MORE.
The NFL always wants more. And the NFL, to its capitalistic credit, always gets more.
Per Marchand, the cash and/or equity ESPN will surrender in the deal is “not yet known, but it will be enormous.”
It’s unclear which assets the deal will include. NFL Network, NFL.com, and any aspect of the league-owned media operations are in play. The league currently retains a package of regular-season games. Those could be sold as well — and those games would contribute to the enormity of the price tag.
As Marchand notes, a regulatory process would unfold after the paperwork is signed. Which could take roughly nine months, and which could entail an entirely coincidental $16 million settlement and/or the cancellation of a show or two.
The deal has been percolating for years. For more years than that, the NFL has been trying to unload the NFL Media properties, which (frankly) have never performed the way the league had presumed they would.
And it will put ESPN even deeper in bed with the NFL, and all that that implies as to ESPN’s overall coverage of the league that will apparently become a part owner of ESPN.
