ESPN agrees to pay over 1 BILLION a year for MNF

[transplant99]

Ever wonder why the NFL is in such good shape as opposed to other sports?

Money....and lots of it.

The Monday Night Football move to cable is expected to cost ESPN $1.1 billion per year over eight years, two sources familiar with the deals told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

NBC will broadcast Sunday night football for $600 million over six years, according to the sources. The network will also get the Super Bowl in 2009 and 2012 as part of the deal, one of the sources said.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/foot...ex.html?cnn=yes

[RougeUnderoos]

How can they make money doing this? That's almost 70 million bucks a game. Do they really get that kind of advertising revenue in that three hours?

Obviously I'm missing some component, and it'd be nice if someone could point out what that is, but holy smokes that is a lot of loot to pay just to show one football game.

[Pagal4321]

Well then my question to you then is what happends to us poor saps with cable.
We don't get ESPN, TSN shows RAW on Mondays........I can't imagine not sitting in my house and watching MNF football.

[stuckinchuck]

Originally posted by Pagal4321@Apr 19 2005, 03:39 PM
Well then my question to you then is what happends to us poor saps with cable.
We don't get ESPN, TSN shows RAW on Mondays........I can't imagine not sitting in my house and watching MNF football.

I'm pretty sure A channel broadcasts the MNF games in Alberta.

[browna]

Hopefully Shaw will pickup some feed to show it in HD, now that ABC HD is out the window.

[Sylvanfan]

Yeah, ESPN must have paid 1.1 billion for the term of that deal, not per year. If they shelled out that much per year, than thats like 30 million per team just to broadcast 1 regular season game a week Still I think NBC got a "bargain" to bring the NFL back to their network and the rights to do two Superbowls. Look at how NBC has done since they lost the NFL in 96, and conversely look how CBS's fortunes have changed since they brought the NFL back that year. Than consider what Fox was before it broadcast NFL. Still Monday Night is an institution, but trying to set a standard time for one game that can potentially end up in 4 different time zones is a challenge, and than having to find a show to fill that spot for the other half of the year probably does make it tough for ABC. I'm sure the fact that ESPN is part of the ABC family probably makes it a bit of a softer blow.

[Ro]

TSN shows the current ESPN feed for Sunday night football, might they pick up the new MNF feed also?

If so, huge score for TSN.

Who will be doing the play by play and colour for NBC? Isn't Bob Costas affiliated with that network? If so, you'd have to think he'll be in there...

[calgaryred]

Which does TSN prefer to have on a monday night lineup WWE RAW or MNF, I think MNF wins.

[transplant99]

Yeah, ESPN must have paid 1.1 billion for the term of that deal, not per year. If they shelled out that much per year, than thats like 30 million per team just to broadcast 1 regular season game a week

Nope...its PER YEAR.

As evidenced by this quote in the article...

Under its current eight-year, $4.4 billion contract, ABC has paid an average of $550 million per year to broadcast Monday Night Football -- exactly one-half of the annual average that ESPN has agreed to pay.

There are 18 weeks in the NFL season (with bye weeks included)

So.. 1.1 Billion divided by 18 is actually 61 million a week. Unbeleivable.

All this on a network that reaches FEWER homes than that of ABC, a network that said it LOST money at half the price.

I dont understand the whole idea here....they cant possibly make up that kind of money on advertising alone im sure, but again I dont know and there are the cable fees they receive as well.

[RougeUnderoos]

In the Globe today I read that TSN is likely to carry Monday Night Football. It's not written in stone though. They still get big numbers from the wrasslin' crowd but a possibility is dump that for 4 months a year to run MNF.

[Sylvanfan]

Originally posted by transplant99@Apr 20 2005, 01:00 PM

Nope...its PER YEAR.

As evidenced by this quote in the article...

Under its current eight-year, $4.4 billion contract, ABC has paid an average of $550 million per year to broadcast Monday Night Football -- exactly one-half of the annual average that ESPN has agreed to pay.

There are 18 weeks in the NFL season (with bye weeks included)

So.. 1.1 Billion divided by 18 is actually 61 million a week. Unbeleivable.

All this on a network that reaches FEWER homes than that of ABC, a network that said it LOST money at half the price.

I dont understand the whole idea here....they cant possibly make up that kind of money on advertising alone im sure, but again I dont know and there are the cable fees they receive as well.

Well it still works out to 30+ million per team just for the Monday Night game or like you say 61 per telecast. Unreal, considering you don't get any Superbowls with that.

Aren't ESPN and ABC still owned by the same company (Disney)? Thats where I can't understand that if it wasn't worth 550million per year for ABC, than why is it worth double to move it to ESPN? Than again if that one game gets them in another 1-2 million homes in the states, and can be broadcast world wide than maybe it is? Still staggering amounts of money to broadcast a sport.

[sbailey924]

MNF won't be the same on another network. ESPN needs to try and sign Al Michaels to do the commentary. If he's gone, I might cry for days.

[Vulcan]

I understand it is the cable fees that make this new deal practicle. What I don't like is that this may be an omen of things to come where most sports are only available on pay channels. Goodbye to Hockey night in Canada on CBC, etc.