Posted on 12/19/2007 5:22:15 PM PST by Snickering Hound
WAHINGTON — Two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the NFL on Wednesday threatening to reconsider the league's antitrust exemption if it doesn't make games on the NFL Network available to more viewers.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., expressed concern that many fans in their home states will not be able to see games on the channel involving the New England Patriots or the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Leahy is the committee's chairman, and Specter is its ranking member.
"Now that the NFL is adopting strategies to limit distribution of game programming to their own networks," they wrote, "Congress may need to reexamine the need and desirability of their continued exemption from the Nation's antitrust laws."
Eight games air this season on the NFL Network, which is available in fewer than 40 percent of the nation's homes with televisions. The league has been feuding with several major cable companies over whether they should carry the channel as part of a basic package.
Games are simulcast on free TV locally for each team, but that doesn't include regional markets such as Vermont for the Patriots or parts of Pennsylvania for the Steelers. NFL officials have repeatedly said they will not agree to any distribution arrangement that only involves games and not year-round broadcast of the channel.
I don’t think you can draw a paralell to boxing-the sport has tanked, while the NFL on the other hand has seen nothing but success.
I can see the day when the NFL goes all pay per view, by game. I can assure you that 95% of the “Steeler Nation” (aka “yinzers”) will pay $50 every week to watch the Steelers on TV. The NFL will charge $50 per game for individuals and $300 per commercial establishment (bars, clubs etc) for games. I think the day of “free” NFL on TV is coming to an end.
Boxing defined the nation for decades, it rivaled baseball for the loyal fanbase. Then the closed circuit matches started in the 70s, then they moved to cable and pay per view (which is basically the same thing only with more potential customers) and now the sport is an after thought.
I’ve been a member of Steeler Nation since Ford was in the White House and there’s simply no way in hell I’d pay $800 a year over and above all the regular cable charges to see the games (that’s assuming I skip their bye week and they don’t make the playoffs so I skip those, if I actually did a full season with post season you’re up to $1050). And really most of the fanbase would be with me. Hell Sunday Ticket doesn’t cost that much and you get every game imaginable. And the reality is they’d have to charge that much to make up for the over $1 billion they’re getting from the networks.
Which is exactly why such a thing is simply not going happen. The math never works out in the NFL’s favor. As soon as they did a PPV move they lose a minimum of 50% of the audience. Between people who can’t afford it, people with spouses who would kill them, and people that just aren’t that big a fan they’d probably lose a lot more than 50% probably talking closer to 75 or 80. At which point of course the attendance to the game will tank, the memorabilia sales will disappear and one of those often threatened “startup” leagues will replace the NFL which will probably be down below $100 million a year in total league revenues.
Allow me to correct one of my own numbers: That $1 billion is actually just the ESPN contract. The total for all the TV contracts is currently at $3.7 billion a year ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFL_on_television ). Really there’s just no way PPV will ever beat that.
The NFL Network is freely available on the Direct and Dish Networks. However, on Comcast Cable last season it was a FREE channel. This season you have to pay a subscribtion fee to watch. This FEE was imposed by Comcast, NOT the NFL.
I'll consider paying a fee if it has NO commercial interruptions. But, paying a fee and then still having to watch 30 minutes of conmmercials in a game.. NO thanks.
Frankly, I don't see what their point is. As I read the Constitution, I see no right to watch NFL games and it's a sad commentary when US Senators who should have better things to do get tied up in this crap.
BTW. The beef here is only about those who don't want to pay the additional price for a product. You can get the NFL network on cable if you pay the additional the cable company demands. The NFL wants it on the basic package (and it is basic on Dish Network). It's the cable companies who want the extra bucks, not the NFL.
One Cowboys game was moved to Sunday night, while the NFL Network took the Pokes for another game or two.
The end result is that the NFL (the pot) is calling cable companies (the kettle) black. They're doing exactly the same thing with the networks that cable companies do with their current system of bundling channels: the networks have to take the NFL "bundle", and pay through the nose to get it.
I think the next TV contract will be quite different from the current one. If I'm Fox, my contract will include a guaranteed number of Cowboys/Packers/Giants/Redskins/Eagles games to cover the premium of the NFC markets.
Not that the NFL wants my advice, but they really need to improve the product they put out on the NFL Network.
The NFC package has always been more expensive. On average NFC teams are in larger TV markets than AFC teams thus their “guaranteed” market is larger. And if they’re complaining about the number of Cowboys games they didn’t get to show they’ll have to get in line behind CBS that’s lost either a Steelers or Pats (most popular AFC franchises) game pretty much every week of the season.
The big question for the next contract is what does the Mouse want to do with ABC. The big thing that’s been pushing the contracts up lately is that there are more networks wanting packages than packages. That caused Fox to snipe CBS’s old contract, then CBS sniped NBC, and in this round NBC functionally sniped ABC (the league wanted to move the premier primetime game to Sunday)even though it looks like they sniped ESPN (of course The Mouse is The Mouse). If they decide they want the NFL on ABC again the revenue will once again jump by an absurd number.
I wasn’t aware the NFL had an anti-trust exemption. I thought only MLB had one?
That's not the whole story. NFL charges the cable companies for the NFL network, but then expects the cable companies to offer it to viewers for free. Did you know NFL is demanding about 70 cents per household for the service? That's incredibly high, I believe it's more than CNN (for example). (Disclaimer - I'm pulling that from memory so I'm not certain it's higher than CNN, but I do know that the amount NFL wants for its network is one of the main points of contention in the debate).
On the NFL's terms, the network benefits only the NFL.. not the cable companies. The only possible benefit cable could get is if it helped them sell their service, but there is only a seasonal demand for football.. and for some people, myself not included (I love football), there is no demand at all - any time of the year. ;)
“There is no need for government involvement in telling a private entity under what conditions and to whom they must make their product available.”
True. And there should also not be an antitrust exemption for anybody... or did I miss that in the Constitution?
I was 1 year old in ‘85.
So the Cable Companies should put the channel on Basic and Expanded and let every one of their subscribers pay?
Why should 100% of subscribers pay for something that 20% of the cable company’s subscribers watch?
Jerry Jones wants more money per sub for his channel than ESPN gets.
I heard part of the arguments flying back and forth between the NFL and Time-warner.
IIRC the NFL wants to charge 70 cents( assuming per household), Time-warner gets to keep all advertising income.
I think the NFL also wants their channel included in either the basic or extended pkg.
Time-warner doesn’t like the deal. Don’t know what the counter offer is.
Discostu, you've been a voice of sanity on this thread until you got to this one.
Sunday Ticket is pay-per-view but it is a package, much like MLB Extra Innings, ESPN GamePlan or NBA League Pass. You pay one cost for a package of games. The reason DirecTV carries it and nobody else is because it is a "loss leader". It costs more money in rights fees than DirecTV gets back. DirecTV agreed to this provided they were the exclusive distributor of Sunday Ticket. They then heavily promote Sunday Ticket and add subscribers who are only customers because they can get Sunday Ticket. When satellite had such a small market share of the cable/satellite universe (mid-1990s), this was a calculated gamble to gain customers.
The NFL then shopped Sunday Ticket to the other cable/satellite systems in 2006 at the end of the exclusivity contract they had with DirecTV. Nobody else took it because nobody likes losing money. DirecTV, on the other hand, had no choice but to pick up Sunday Ticket because they'd lose a bunch of NFL fans if they didn't.
Now, this is a different topic than NFL Network. The issue with NFL Network is that the NFL agreed with some cable operators to carry the channel on a digital tier but that same agreement was not okay when it came to negotiating with Time Warner and Charter. The NFL has already set a precedent but they don't want to carry that same precedent to larger cable companies.
Why? Because they need eyeballs to sell the advertising rates they want to charge and will have less eyeballs if their channel is on a digital tier than on a standard tier. If they are on a digital tier, cable can raise rates only on those with that tier. If they are on a standard tier, the cable company must raise rates on 97% of their customers. All that for a channel that only carries 10 live games a year.
So why did the NFL agree to the digital tier with some companies but not others? The strategy was to use public pressure on Time Warner and Charter to make them capitulate to the NFL's demands THEN go back and force the other companies to do the same thing citing Time Warner and Charter as the precedent. Right now, Time Warner and Charter are arguing that the existing cable deals are the precedent.
That's where the battle line is drawn. The NFL wants two standards so they can then go back and force the higher standard on the smaller companies. The larger companies are telling the NFL that they've already set the industry standard and fairness demands that they treat all cable carriers by that standard.
BTW, it is true that shopping channels *pay* cable companies to carry them. Also, most religious channels offer their programming free, believeing their mission is to evangelize not turn a profit. That's why both channels are frequently carried because they don't cost cable operators anything and add to the total number of channels they can offer.
I wondered the same thing. Most sports leagues do have a limited anti-trust exemption because the various teams do act in concert for rather obvious reasons, unlike oil companies, supermarkets and other competing companies. I presume this is what Congress wants to toy with.
Personally, I think government should stay out of this. It is noteworthy, too, that the NFL is the one trying to get government (at the state and federal level) to intervene. Usually, the one who goes crying to the government is the one with the weaker bargaining position.
So, why aren't either the NFLN (and BTN) or Time Warner/Comcast accepting the idea that digital cable sans sports tier is the appropriate place for the NFLN/BTN?
Did these same senators get all fired up when they learned THE NEW YORK YANKEES BROADCAST ON THEIR OWN NETWORK, the YES network which can NOT be seen by DISH network subscibers??
Nope.
great Answer T_T
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