The major sports leagues like to push the envelope, that’s for sure. We’re in pandemic times and the NFL reportedly wants to double, yes, double their asking price per year for rights to show their games.
Do they really think television rights are worth that much? Or rather, that much more during these times? It seems more than eyebrow raising and Disney is calling them out.
Disney agreed to pay $1.9 billion annually for Monday Night Football in 2011 — a deal that runs through 2021. That dwarfed the average $1.1 billion annual cost for Fox, $1 billion annual price tag for CBS and $960 million for NBC’s Sunday Night Football. Disney has already rejected paying anywhere close to $3.8 billion per year for its new deal, said two of the people. Disney CEO Bob Chapek alluded to pushing back on the NFL’s asking price during his company’s earnings conference call last week.
NFL asking for 100% increase on TV rights, Disney pushing back
We are fair season fans, admittedly. I will watch live sports when my favorite team, or home team, rather, is doing well. The Seahawks choked down the stretch. The Mariners haven’t been good since Ichiro was on his epic hitting streak and we don’t even have an NBA team in the Seattle area.
Agree with Disney on this one. Ask for a discount on pricing. Less people are watching live TV these days. Less people have cable or satellite and are using streaming. Sure, those streaming rights are part of what the NFL wants to negotiate with Disney — so they can stream on Hulu TV presumably — but still not anywhere close to $1.9 billion, much less $3.8 billion.
This is one of those circumstances where we can blame the NFL for asking. What do you think? Is the NFL worth all this cheddar? I get you might like your favorite NFL team and the ability to watch them on your favorite channel but …. for this much, really?
Movies, Movies, Movies 
Yeah that’s a ton of money. With all the ways to watch Football now I don’t see why they would agree to such terms. I think the NFL might as well just show games on their own NFL Network and if needed start up a second channel
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Guess it doesn’t hurt to ask … but that price — especially in these times — just seems very, very greedy.
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