|
to revive 'MNF'
Better games will help but real issue is NFL's cost
By Carl Bialik
The tussle between CBS, Fox and ABC over prime NFL games resembles a fight between paupers for a few stray crumbs while the loaf is allowed to spoil unattended.
Who wins the crumbs is certainly an issue, but a larger one is the fate of professional football as a free-TV entertainment.
Surely, getting more competitive games between better teams could give ABC's "Monday Night Football" franchise a boost.
While who was commentating on the games, whether Dennis Miller or now John Madden for the coming season, received lots of press attention, neither's style, nor the press attention, could ever compensate for two late-season appearances by the woeful Minnesota Vikings.
Bad football is bad football, no matter who's chatting it up.
The plan being pitched by the NFL could put two playoff contenders on "MNF" late in the season, which could give the show a pickup in ratings, or at least slow the slide.
Under the NFL scheme, CBS and Fox will have first pick of each weekend's games. Together the two networks will be able to reserve three games for themselves, thus putting them off-limits to ABC. ABC will be able to air one of the remaining Sunday games or stick with its originally scheduled game.
But in the end the difference will be marginal.
There is a giant matzoh ball hanging over the issue, and it is in the form of a March 8 report by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. analyst Richard Bilotti about the woeful state of sports TV.
Bilotti projected that ABC, Fox and CBS will lose $3.6 billion on sports programming from 2000 to 2006.
The source of those big losses?
Surprisingly, the bulk comes from the king of all TV sports: the NFL.
Billoti writes that those three networks will lose a combined $2.9 billion on their current eight-year $17.6 billion football deal.
What's happened to King Football?
The same thing that has happened to the rest of TV sports, only more dramatically.
With viewers fleeing to cable, it is looking nigh on impossible for the TV networks to make money from huge rights deals with the Big Four sports.
This is old news, of course, but Bilotti's report drew the problem in starkest terms.
The networks have long argued that the big losses on big sports are worth it because they provide a platform from which to boost other programming.
But while that may work and bring value, Bilotti argues that the losses from sports are so huge that they more than wipe out any gains that come from cross-promotions.
Does all this mean the NFL is an anomaly, a seemingly good deal gone bad?
Not at all.
Bilotti also found that nearly half of the $4.6 billion paid by ABC and ESPN for NBA rights -- $2.2 billion -- will be lost.
The NFL is in stronger financial shape than any major sport, with healthy labor relations, competitive balance, and a successful system of revenue sharing and salary caps.
The problem lies not with the league but with the model of spending huge sums to show sports for free.
That's the area of spoilage, and the most obvious resolution is for NFL football to join the long march into cable.
NBC has been much ridiculed for losing its stakes in major sports and instead signing on niche players like the Arena Football League. But it is worth noting that NBC faces losses of only $351 million on its sports programming, far less than its competitors.
Perhaps NBC was simply a little quicker on the uptake.
March 25, 2002 © 2002 Media Life
-Carl Bialik is a New York writer and a contributor to Media Life.
Send to a
Friend| Printer-Friendly Version
Cover Page | Contact
Us
