NFL May Try to Prevent its Games from Airing on New Joint Venture Streamer from Disney, Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery
A new report suggests the league is examining its contracts with Fox and Disney to see if it has any leverage to prevent their airing games on the new streamer.
The NFL has been extremely deliberate about making its product available via streaming. Making games available on broadcast channels is what turned the NFL into the giant TV product it is today, but its deliberate strategy was somewhat upended last week when Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery announced they would be bringing all of their sports rights to a new streaming platform intended to launch this fall. The NFL was reportedly not informed about the streamer until the news broke last week, and Puck is reporting that the league is “scouring” its contracts with Fox and Disney to see if it can prevent its games from airing on the streamer.
- If the NFL has no legal recourse for stopping Disney and Fox from streaming its games, it may try to saddle them with unfavorable schedules.
- The league fears decreased competition, as it could prevent rivals from bidding against each other and raising the cost of acquiring NFL rights.
- The NFL offered a streaming-only playoff game for the first time in 2023, and could be seeking more money from Disney and Fox before it gives the JV streamer its OK.
Why Are Leagues and TV Providers Upset About the New Sports Streaming Joint Venture?
The announcement of the new joint venture sports streamer sent shockwaves across sports leagues and the media landscape simultaneously. Some cable channel distributors like Fubo gave swift and negative reactions to the news, while others like Comcast preferred to sit back and wait for more information.
The NFL issued a bland statement when it learned of the new streamer, but as Puck and Pro Football Talk's reporting demonstrates, the league was far less serene behind closed doors. If it cannot find a way to legally stop Disney and Fox from sending NFL games that appear on ABC/ESPN on Monday nights or Fox on Sunday afternoons to the new streaming platform, it may try to schedule less favorable matchups to appear in those timeslots going forward. Nearly a decade ago, many in and around the sports and broadcasting industries believe that the NFL has done something similar in the past. Following harsh criticism from ESPN commentators, the network’s slate of “Monday Night Football” games got surprisingly and noticeably worse than it had been in recent memory.
This time around, the reason that the league is so upset about the proposed streamer airing games is because it fears a lack of competition for broadcast rights between those two outlets for its games going forward. The NFL collects huge rights fee payments from its broadcast partners; its current contract with broadcasters runs until 2032, and pays a total of $111 billion over its length. One of the chief ways the NFL is able to secure so much money for its broadcasting rights is that it has so many different media companies bidding against each other, thus raising the price overall.
So, is the NFL Just Looking For More Money?
Having watched the NFL do business with its broadcast partners in the past, The Streamable has reason to think this leaking of the league’s sour mood regarding the JV streaming platform is just a play for more cash.
It’s not as if the NFL has a moral or philosophical objection to more of its games on streaming services. In 2023, the league made one of its playoff games a streaming exclusive for the first time when it moved its Miami Dolphins/Kansas City Chiefs Wild Card game to Peacock for national audiences. The game was a success, but NFL Media EVP Hans Schroeder told the media that the league would continue to build its streaming presence at its own pace.
“The vast, vast majority — I think almost 90 percent of our games this year — were available nationally on broadcast television” Schroeder said. “So you know I don’t think you’ll see us do something revolutionary, I think this will just be the natural continued evolution of making sure our games [are] given the screens and the places and the platforms.”
Placing ESPN and Fox’s games on a new streaming service would not be that revolutionary a step for the NFL. After all, fans can stream most “Monday Night Football” games on ESPN+ every season, and CBS’s Sunday afternoon slate streams on Paramount+. That’s before even mentioning that “Thursday Night Football” is nationally available only on Prime Video now, so clearly, the NFL does not have objections to streaming its games per se.
That leads The Streamable to believe that a hefty tender of extra cash from Disney and Fox could smooth things over between them and the NFL quite nicely. It’s not clear how much more they’d have to offer the league to soothe its jangled nerves and allow them to place its games on their streaming platform, but writing a big check seems the best way of ensuring relations between the NFL, Disney, and Fox remain amicable.
If the NFL does find a loophole allowing them to prevent Disney and Fox from putting their games on their new JV streaming service, fans will get a chance to see how serious the league really is. It’s likely that it simply wants Disney and Fox to pay for the privilege of streaming more NFL games, but the league’s concerns about lowering competition for its rights going forward may convince it to pull those games from the JV platform.
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