I think the NFL strategy will eventually be pay-per-view...buying direct from the NFL and not via CBS or ESPN or ABC....basically cutting out the middle-man. It will take ten years and they are comfortable in waiting this out. This episode now...is simply a stepping stone.
As for the idea of me paying $39 a month during the NFL season....to get various games on my TV...nope. You can forget about that kind of deal. The most I can see a reasonable guy paying...is $10 a month...which won’t work in terms of profitability.
The amusing thing...the NFL is the only one that might try this and get away with it. No one would dare attempt this with Major League Baseball or the NBA.
Nope that’s not gonna happen. Right now the NFL is making slightly over 1 billion dollars a year from the TV contracts. There’s simply no way they’ll pull of that kind of cash in any kind of pay-per-view thing, even if half the audience didn’t walk away from the sport if they did that the numbers just don’t work.
I’ve been saying that for some time now. The NFL will go to a subscription system or pay per view (per game). And I’d be willing to guess that they would even do simulcasts of games and viewers would get the choice of either broadcast TV of the games with all of the stupid commericals, or pay per view with no commericals.