Jerry Jones's wide smile added wattage to the bright lights at Lincoln Financial Field when he talked about the TV rights still left to be sold by the National Football League.
"I never thought eight games would be so valuable," Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, said before his team defeated the Eagles, 21-20, in Philadelphia on Monday night.
An eight-game package hath charms to cheer the happy N.F.L. mogul.
That octet of telecasts - which will air Thursdays and Saturdays during the second half of the 2006 season - makes up the first new television package the league has created since ESPN bought a half-season of games in 1987.
But this is not an ordinary deal because it is unlikely to end up - perhaps as soon as early next month - as a simple sale of rights. Instead, the league is sifting through partners to find one to create an all-sports network with the Thursday-Saturday rights and invest in the NFL Network.
The NFL Network is cherished among the league's properties, and one it believes can enrich owners for decades to come.
"I get up in the middle of the night to watch international news, and then I turn to the NFL Network," said Robert K. Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots. "I watch it all the time, and many real fans do the same."
But in the league's eyes, not enough fans can, because the NFL Network is available to only 35 million cable and satellite subscribers. Not bad for two years, but some cable operators, like Time Warner, will not carry it without regular-season games.
A strategy appears to be evolving: create a new all-sports network, and use it as leverage to get more subscribers for the NFL Network. Perhaps operators would get a discount if they took both. It may be difficult to sell both networks into the market simultaneously, but the N.F.L. will try.
"We hope our potential programming partner can help us get more exposure, even without putting games on the NFL Network," Jones said.
Kraft added, "If we can have the new multisport platform, and the NFL Network continues to grow, that would be the ideal solution."
He resisted the idea of turning the NFL Network into the all-sports channel. "We want it to be all football," said Kraft, who, like Jones, is on the N.F.L. broadcast committee, which is chaired by Pat Bowlen, the Denver Broncos' owner.
The league could go solo and award itself the eight games, which would vastly increase its distribution and let it raise fees to its cable and satellite subscribers. That route would deprive it of upfront money from a partner but would give the league all the upside in revenues and long-term equity growth. But, Bowlen said, "I think we're leaning toward a partner."
How close is a deal? "There seems to be a lot of interest," Bowlen said.
The advantage of being the N.F.L. is that it always has more TV suitors than rights to sell. The Thursday-Saturday package, the smallest of all packages, has come along at the right time to satisfy the ambition of a crowd of media giants, including Comcast, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, ESPN, Turner Sports, NBC Universal and CBS, with its newly acquired CSTV.
Kraft cited Comcast and Murdoch as the best candidates for its two-pronged strategy but didn't rule out NBC and ESPN. "We really have to zero in on what we want to do," he said. "We have a lot of options."
Comcast's ambitions are obvious: it converted the Outdoor Life Network to OLN, acquired National Hockey League rights and now craves an N.F.L. deal that would let it convert OLN into an all-sports network that would rival ESPN. It is the nation's largest cable operator and carries the NFL Network.
"We would love to have the N.F.L.," said Jeff Shell, the president of Comcast Programming. "We're thrilled to still be talking."
Greg Hughes, a Turner spokesman, said, "At the right price, we're interested."
Turner carried a half-season of the N.F.L. on TNT from 1990 to 1997 and contemplated starting a new league with NBC, which had likewise lost its N.F.L. rights after that season, but NBC then went into the XFL business.
What is the right price for eight games? Since late last year, when it began selling TV rights in new contracts that begin next year, the league has amassed deals with CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN and DirecTV worth an average of $3.7 billion annually, up from the current $2.4 billion average.
If the price of those eight games is as steep as $400 million, it would be more than 50 percent of the size of all but ESPN's $1.1-billion-a-year deal, and it would include no postseason goodies. But the N.F.L., even a small piece of it from Thanksgiving to Christmas, is too irresistible for many to reject.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/16/sports/football/16tv.html
"I never thought eight games would be so valuable," Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, said before his team defeated the Eagles, 21-20, in Philadelphia on Monday night.
An eight-game package hath charms to cheer the happy N.F.L. mogul.
That octet of telecasts - which will air Thursdays and Saturdays during the second half of the 2006 season - makes up the first new television package the league has created since ESPN bought a half-season of games in 1987.
But this is not an ordinary deal because it is unlikely to end up - perhaps as soon as early next month - as a simple sale of rights. Instead, the league is sifting through partners to find one to create an all-sports network with the Thursday-Saturday rights and invest in the NFL Network.
The NFL Network is cherished among the league's properties, and one it believes can enrich owners for decades to come.
"I get up in the middle of the night to watch international news, and then I turn to the NFL Network," said Robert K. Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots. "I watch it all the time, and many real fans do the same."
But in the league's eyes, not enough fans can, because the NFL Network is available to only 35 million cable and satellite subscribers. Not bad for two years, but some cable operators, like Time Warner, will not carry it without regular-season games.
A strategy appears to be evolving: create a new all-sports network, and use it as leverage to get more subscribers for the NFL Network. Perhaps operators would get a discount if they took both. It may be difficult to sell both networks into the market simultaneously, but the N.F.L. will try.
"We hope our potential programming partner can help us get more exposure, even without putting games on the NFL Network," Jones said.
Kraft added, "If we can have the new multisport platform, and the NFL Network continues to grow, that would be the ideal solution."
He resisted the idea of turning the NFL Network into the all-sports channel. "We want it to be all football," said Kraft, who, like Jones, is on the N.F.L. broadcast committee, which is chaired by Pat Bowlen, the Denver Broncos' owner.
The league could go solo and award itself the eight games, which would vastly increase its distribution and let it raise fees to its cable and satellite subscribers. That route would deprive it of upfront money from a partner but would give the league all the upside in revenues and long-term equity growth. But, Bowlen said, "I think we're leaning toward a partner."
How close is a deal? "There seems to be a lot of interest," Bowlen said.
The advantage of being the N.F.L. is that it always has more TV suitors than rights to sell. The Thursday-Saturday package, the smallest of all packages, has come along at the right time to satisfy the ambition of a crowd of media giants, including Comcast, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, ESPN, Turner Sports, NBC Universal and CBS, with its newly acquired CSTV.
Kraft cited Comcast and Murdoch as the best candidates for its two-pronged strategy but didn't rule out NBC and ESPN. "We really have to zero in on what we want to do," he said. "We have a lot of options."
Comcast's ambitions are obvious: it converted the Outdoor Life Network to OLN, acquired National Hockey League rights and now craves an N.F.L. deal that would let it convert OLN into an all-sports network that would rival ESPN. It is the nation's largest cable operator and carries the NFL Network.
"We would love to have the N.F.L.," said Jeff Shell, the president of Comcast Programming. "We're thrilled to still be talking."
Greg Hughes, a Turner spokesman, said, "At the right price, we're interested."
Turner carried a half-season of the N.F.L. on TNT from 1990 to 1997 and contemplated starting a new league with NBC, which had likewise lost its N.F.L. rights after that season, but NBC then went into the XFL business.
What is the right price for eight games? Since late last year, when it began selling TV rights in new contracts that begin next year, the league has amassed deals with CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN and DirecTV worth an average of $3.7 billion annually, up from the current $2.4 billion average.
If the price of those eight games is as steep as $400 million, it would be more than 50 percent of the size of all but ESPN's $1.1-billion-a-year deal, and it would include no postseason goodies. But the N.F.L., even a small piece of it from Thanksgiving to Christmas, is too irresistible for many to reject.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/16/sports/football/16tv.html
