← The Town with Matthew Belloni
The Town with Matthew Belloni
The NFL's Billion-Dollar Cash Grab and Whether There’s Any Left for Film and TV
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- [00:00]
A
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- [03:36]
B
Always a pleasure to be here.
- [03:38]
A
Okay, so I read with interest your recent story about the NFL rights renegotiation, which for people in Hollywood that are like, oh, I don't care about sports, like that's not Hollywood. It is Hollywood because every decision that these media companies make about sports and what they are paying for sports rights trickles down through the entire ecosystem. And I have been saying for a long time the insane valuations of these rights deals is going to put pressure on traditional entertainment. And we already see it. And your story reported that we're about to see a lot more at CBS because this debt laden company, they're taking on $80 billion of debt to buy Warner Brothers Discovery. They, they are going to likely go from 2.1 billion a year for the Sunday afternoon package to more than 3 billion a year. Am I getting that right?
- [04:33]
B
Yeah, that's where the bid ask spread is. From what I'm reporting, it's right around a 50% increase now, meaning CVS wants a lower increase, the NFL wants a larger increase. So we'll see where it lands. But right now the Midpoint is around 50% which would mean that CBS would be paying more than $3 billion, slightly more than $3 billion.
- [04:52]
A
Doesn't the NFL just get what they want though, whatever they're ask?
- [04:56]
B
Well, I mean they can't, they don't want to put these players out of business because that's the thing, fewer bidders. So you go right up to the line of, you know, not putting them out of business and then, you know, then, then pull it back maybe just, just a hair. But yeah, I think that's what's going to happen. I, I, I, my guess is that CBS will renew its deal for the NFL. It's so important to all of these media companies. It's where all of you know, it's whatever that statistic is every year, 90 out of the top 100 shows or NFL shows every year, whatever the number is, it's always extremely high.
- [05:30]
A
Isn't the big deal that the fact the NBA is now getting more money from NBC than the NFL is? It's like that can't happen.
- [05:40]
B
Well, I think that's what's. So just to back up a little bit here, the NFL signed its rights deal with all of its legacy Media partners in 2021. That deal went until 20, the end of the 2033, 34 season. When they signed that deal. There was an opt out clause in that deal at the end of the 29, 30 season. And when the NBA deal hit, the NFL took a look at that deal and said, man, we are underpricing our product. If this is what media companies are paying for the NBA, which their regular season games get, I don't know, million, 2 million viewers, you know, think about what our, our value should be.
- [06:19]
A
And so, well, that was more of a volume play. Also though the NBA has a lot more games.
- [06:24]
B
Of course it's not apples to apples, but I think the NFL realized, think about the power of the NFL and the importance of the NFL to these media companies when it comes to not only advertising, but the, all the distribution deals like the NFL holds more weight by far than any other sport. And so when they saw that the NBA got a huge increase on its deal, the NFL realized, you know what, I think we may have underpriced ourselves when we struck that deal in 2021. So I think that was sort of the straw that broke the Campbell's back in terms of the NFL saying we really should trigger this opt out clause. And then that morphed into thinking, wait a second, not only should we trigger the opt out clause, but maybe we should renew these deals even sooner because I think we are leaving money on the table. And so that's where we are right now. CBS is going to be the first one because there's a change of control provision that stems from the Skydance Paramount deal that allows the league to potentially pull away NFL rights altogether if they wanted from CBS in 2027. So the NFL, they don't actually want that.
- [07:30]
A
They don't want that because CBS is still a huge partner. It's still the, you know, greatest distribution and they don't actually want that. And I was, I was talking to an analyst about this and he was saying, yeah, this seems like doom and gloom for these media companies, but if they can get the NFL to drop that opt out clause for later and renegotiate now. These companies will be able to say to the street and to everyone else that yes, we may be challenged but we have NFL rights to through 2023. So we can, we're not going anywhere, we're not going out of business for it. So it's actually in these networks best interest to renegotiate now rather than wait for the opt out. Do you agree there?
- [08:18]
B
That is why this is all happening. You just summed it up right there. So the league and its media partners are under contract until 29:30. They don't need to renegotiate these rights. So the only way a new deal will get done is if both parties turn the key. And so that's where we are right now. And there's incentive for the media companies to turn the key because the opt out clause, as I reported in the piece on Friday, will go away in return for paying a billion dollars more or whatever the number may be per year. That's the pull and take here. The NFL will get more money and then the companies themselves will not have to worry about about this opt out deal and we'll just be able to get the NFL until the end of the initial contract, which is at the end of that 2033, 34 season.
- [09:05]
A
So I want to talk about the pain point here. What is what this tipping point is potentially, because you also reported that ESPN and ABC, they pay $2.7 billion currently a year for Monday Night Football. And if they were to go up by 50%, which is what CBS may go up by, that Disney would be unlikely to renew on those terms. So what does that mean? Does that mean that ESPN is going to get a better deal than another partner? CBS probably isn't going to love that. And they may even have a most favored nations in their deal on the percentage basis. I don't know about that. But they also, they don't want to give up ESPN as a partner. Right. The NFL needs ESPN still.
- [09:52]
B
So this starts to get into the nuances of the packages themselves. So CBS and Fox own the Sunday afternoon NFL packages. NBC owns Sunday Night Football. Disney slash, you know, abc, ESPN owns Monday Night Football. Amazon owns Thursday Night Football. All of those packages don't cost the same amount of money. So Disney currently pays the most amount of money of any of the media companies for its package of Monday Night Football. Disney executives have told me they feel like the value of Monday Night Football on a relative basis to the other packages has diminished because the Other packages have gotten to use poor English more better than the Monday Night Football package has gotten in recent years. Specifically Amazon's Thursday night package, which just.
- [10:49]
A
Better games.
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B
You mean better games. The league has given Amazon better games for that Thursday night package. And therefore Monday Night Football is not as better relative to the other packages as it used to be.
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A
And why is that? I mean, Sunday Night Football is the highest rated of all of them. Is that still correct?
- [11:07]
B
Yeah, I mean you can, you, you'll have to brainstorm the why is that. There's obviously all of the media companies try to lobby for themselves to get as good of a games as possible. But I'll give you a plausible reason on why that is, which is when even in 2021 when the NFL struck these deals, there was still some uncertainty on if the audience would fully travel to a exclusive streaming service. Remember, this was the first of its kind.
- [11:38]
A
Oh yeah, and they didn't. The first year they didn't really.
- [11:41]
B
In the first year they didn't. And the second year they, they kind of did it.
- [11:46]
A
Yeah, you're talking about the Amazon.
- [11:47]
B
Thursday night there was advances and jumps made. It wasn't quite on par with ESPN or the broadcast networks. Today it is. And I just spoke with the head of NFL media, Hans Schroeder, and he was very point blank about it.
- [12:03]
A
He was like, I love that, by the way. I love that the capo for the media deals, his name is Hans Schroeder. It's like a Bond villain. You do not, you do not screw around with Hans Schroeder.
- [12:14]
B
Right, exactly. The NFL leans right into it. Much better than Brian Rolapp, the last NFL, who's now the PGA CEO. So he said to me, look, digital, big digital platforms have gained parody at this stage with broadcast networks. Not just cable networks, but broadcast networks. So the league has rewarded Amazon in essence because the audience has come to Thursday Night Football. And by the way, those Thursday night games were, you know, kind of shitty. That was the reputation and I don't think the league like that.
- [12:49]
A
Well, they also see Amazon as a potential future partner.
- [12:54]
B
There you go. That was the last of them.
- [12:56]
A
Fox has gone away and God knows what Disney's going to even do with with ESPN. Amazon is probably going to be around in 20 years and the audience is going there that like what? Like same thing with Netflix. I mean Netflix currently only has their, their Christmas day package of NFL. They just got $2.8 billion as a gift from Paramount. Do you think they're going to go after more NFL?
- [13:22]
B
Yeah, they might. For smaller packages, I think that's quite likely.
- [13:26]
A
That international game that the NFL's talking about doing, like where they could have carve out a package of international games. They have, they're talking about now a Black Wednesday game. They have Black Friday now. They might do a Black Wednesday. I don't know. Who asked? Five, five NFL games in a week. Craig's going to go nuts. His fantasy pod is going to go into overdrive. You think they are going to do the Wednesday game?
- [13:49]
C
Yeah, Adam Schefter tweeted it. It's going to be seven games in nine days across the Thanksgiving corridor because there's going to be a game on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving.
- [13:56]
A
Now, rip Craig's family from that deal
- [13:59]
B
that Disney did with the NFL Network. The NFL actually pulled back four games from that deal. So those are now free games for the league to sell as well.
- [14:07]
A
What is an NFL game worth? What is the value of an NFL game on the open market right now?
- [14:13]
B
It depends, of course on which game it is and which teams are playing. But roughly speaking, you know, for a marquee regular season game, it's probably somewhere in the $75 million range. You know, playoff games, more than 100 million at this stage, I would say. So something, something like that. In that ballpark, yeah.
- [14:33]
A
It's basically the cost of an entire season of a premium streaming service.
- [14:41]
B
Right. I mean, it's, it's again, like, you have to think about this from an audience standpoint. You know, YouTube got a one off game in week one this past season. I think it was Chargers, Chiefs, you know, Brazil.
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A
Right?
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B
In Brazil, right?
- [14:56]
A
Yeah.
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B
You know, that game, I don't remember the exact total actually. I think the audience somewhat underwhelmed what people thought. But you know, it was in like the 18 million range, something like that, if memory serves correctly, for how many people watched, you know, the big playoff games. Obviously, you know, if you're, if you're really extending it to the AFC NFC championship, those games can get like 40 million people. So like the numbers just blow out anything other than sort of the championship games or like the Olympic championship games for any sport. So we're just talking about something that's in a completely different stratosphere than anything else in terms of eyeballs and ratings.
- [15:33]
D
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- [17:04]
A
This episode is brought to you by Hotels.com Save youe Way is a new feature on Hotels.com and it's as simple as it sounds. When you book a trip as a Hotels.com member, you decide how to use your savings. Take the instant savings now or bank the savings as rewards for later. It's your call only@hotels.com Save your way is available to loyalty members in the US and UK and hotels with member prices. Other terms apply. See site for details. So B of A Our friend Jessica Ehrlich put out a report a couple weeks ago talking about the impact of these renegotiations on Fox and how Fox is going to potentially be negatively impacted by any fee increase. But she also noted that to potentially offset these additional charges, Fox could manage their other sports rights costs within the portfolio, meaning drop some stuff or reduce some stuff. And I think that we could soon see a rebalancing of all of these rights because of how expensive the NFL is. I mean, your parent company, Versant is talking about potentially picking up some games because others might have to. We saw ESPN offload some college football games to Warner Brothers Discovery because they now pay so much for that. Like, are we about to see a, a pretty big reshuffling of where people watch sports?
- [18:33]
B
This is a very unique time for these media companies because I think we are on the cusp of what will be a fairly significant rebalancing. I think that's the word. Not just Jessica Erlich that said it, but actually Lachlan Murdoch, the Fox CEO. I mean, he came right out and said that he expects Fox. I think the quote that he said was Fox is prepared to rebalance its rights, something like that. And so you then will have to take a look at all of the different sports rights.
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A
They should rebalance Tom Brady, they should rebalance his $300 million to Austin, offload him to, to Versant.
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B
Or that's the thing, which is that what he's, what he's saying is that that is not the direction that we're, we're going to keep Tom Brady in that bloated contract and instead we're going to rebalance, you know, for Fox, it's probably soccer rights. You know, for other companies. Like, like for instance, you know, CBS coming together with Turner, both of those companies now have a lot of sports rights in their portfolio. If CBS is going to pay a billion dollars more for the NFL, it's. There's two things that are probably going to be cut. One is your lead in. Right? It's entertainment programming, which we've already seen. We've already seen so many of these companies lean into cheaper reality programming and ditch scripted. So entertainment programming will probably continue to feel the brunt of this. But the other thing that will probably be let go are these smaller sports rights where the budget will kind of indicate, you know what? It's not just the budget, by the way, it's the strategy behind it. Right. If any of these media companies has the NFL, they don't need to have a lot of these smaller sports. That's what Turner, when it lost the NBA, it shifted its strategy to start accumulating smaller sports rights so that it could buoy the, the distribution fee that it charges all other pay TV providers. So it signed up the French Open and it struck a deal with unrivaled, the three on three women's basketball league.
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A
Don't forget The Savannah Bananas.
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B
Savannah Bananas, right. AEW wrestling like it started.
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A
I know, it's so sad.
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B
A lot of these smaller sports with the hope that this hodgepodge had struck a deal to sublicense a few college football playoff games from espn. The hope was that all of this stuff together would roughly accumulate the value of the NBA. Well, if Warner now comes together with cbs, the whole sports strategy changes because now TNT is negotiating these deals alongside the entire CBS portfolio. It doesn't need all of these smaller sports anymore to buoy its distribution.
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A
I agree. I think they're going to drop a lot of that stuff and which will create opportunities for potentially some other smaller networks for Versus. Yes. If USA could pick up the Savannah Bananas easy. Do you think that we're going to start to see the premium spike sports from CBS across the portfolio like UFC on HBO and the Masters, you know, early rounds on tnt, that kind of thing?
- [21:42]
B
I think it depends on the sport, but broadly speaking, yes I do. By the way, that may go both ways. You know, it may. David Ellison and his sports team in conjunction with Turner, assuming the deal gets done, they may decide they want to keep NHL for instance. And then those NHL games, you know, ESPN has dominated the finals because the NHL has decided it would basically rather have its championship Stanley cup games on ESPN rather than on tnt. Well now if this is one company now you've got cbs, a broadcast network, maybe the NHL says actually we'd love to have those finals games air on cbs. So why don't we move some of the hockey, the premier hockey games from TNT over to CBS if we strike a new deal. So I think we're going to start to see a two way street there of all of the sports that remain where there's juggling between the cable networks and the broadcast network cbs both ways.
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A
So because of this NFL death Star, I think the other leagues are all trying to strategize around it. You know, you mentioned the NHL. They have their rights coming up. I believe it's after next season, after 2028 also. Just like Major League Baseball after 2028. Okay, so NHL and Major League Baseball are both approaching this Death Star differently. Right? The NHL wants to go first, they want to get a new deal. And the N, the MLB seems to be waiting a little bit. Now the MLB has its own issues with the regional sports networks and all that. And we don't need to talk about that. Let's talk about the national rights here because I think MLB is the interesting one because they are seeing a surge lately The World Series ratings were way up. This World Baseball Classic has been a huge ratings driver. I mean, I've been watching it. My kid is super into it against the Oscars too. I know. I think they actually took some viewers away from the Oscars. But. But what is the strategy for these other leagues when the NFL is now so dominant?
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B
Yeah, so. So that was good lead in. I think they differ. I think for Major League Baseball. I believe Rob Manfred wants to do sort of a complete rewrite of the whole media landscape. Not only will they have access to at least some of the local rights at the end of the 2028 season,
- [24:08]
A
based on the implosion of that regional
- [24:11]
B
sports network, based on the implosion of the regional sports network, which will probably continue to implode over the next several years.
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A
Yeah, because of cord cutting. They can't justify not enough people paying when they don't watch. So we don't have to get into that.
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B
My understanding is that he wants to totally rewrite these packages. So that is not. For instance, it's sort of the antithesis of what I expect to see from the NFL, which is the NFL will probably just keep all of the packages the same with all of the current providers and just have them pay more money and then they'll get rid of that opt out. Plus Major League Baseball may do totally new packages, totally new partners. And so in order to do this, you have to have all of those rights expire. Like you can't just front run the deal.
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A
They just moved Sunday Night Baseball from ESPN to NBC. But that's a short term deal, right?
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B
So that's where Major League Baseball is right now. They have a bunch of these short term deals out there that all of these, both the league and the media partners themselves are kind of just waiting to expire. So Sunday Night Baseball, that went to in part it went to NBC, the Home Run Derby went to Netflix and you know, like. But all of that runs out in 2028. It was a short term deal. They have this, you know, the Apple Friday night baseball thing and a small package with Roku. Like all of that stuff goes away at the end of 2028 and then they have their main packages with Turner and Fox. So I would expect a complete rewrite of everything.
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A
I'm guessing Turner goes away.
- [25:45]
B
Look again, if Turner may be CBS at that point. So maybe CBS wants a package and it, it quasi goes away because some of the games are on CBS and then some of the games end up on tnt. That one's a tough One, but it. But it's hard to move up your negotiation date to get ahead of the NFL when there's just so much in flux with your strategy. It would be much easier if all you needed to do was renew the rights, because the way these deals are done, the incumbent partners actually have exclusive windows where they're the only ones that can negotiate for a while. So if you're going to front run it, you need to basically just renew with your existing partners. Maybe the NHL could do that. But this CBS Turner deal now throws a wrench in that, because you have to wait to figure out is this deal actually going to close or not before you would do a deal with Turner. So I think the NHL is kind of forced to wait until at least that happens. And, you know, whether. When is that going to happen? I don't know. September, October, later, who knows?
- [26:48]
A
You get into the NFL question then, where. If the NFL is renegotiating and all the money is going to NFL, then what's going to be left over for NHL and mlb?
- [26:57]
B
Correct.
- [26:58]
A
And throw in the prospect of an MLB strike, which most people believe will likely happen after this season, at least a lockout, and that could just kill their momentum.
- [27:12]
B
Yeah, all of these are the questions that are, you know, being wrestled with right now. And, and the big one, obviously is if and when the NFL strikes these new deals with their media partners, how much money is left for all of these sports? Which, by the way, you mentioned that the ratings were surging for Major League Baseball. They're also surging for the NHL. I mean, the Olympics really helped, too. Those ratings were up to begin with. Now all sports ratings are up because Nielsen kind of rejiggered the way they do things. But the NHL ratings are up even more than sort of your standard.
- [27:44]
A
You know, every four years, people are reminded that there's still a major sport where they let you fight.
- [27:50]
B
That's right. And the Olympics really help. So the NHL is going to be looking for an increase, and Major League Baseball is going to be looking for an increase, and something probably needs to give here, and it's not going to be the NFL.
- [28:01]
A
So give me the general takeaway right now in sports media rights. Like, what is the one thing to know about what's going on right now? Like, is it just that all of this is going to eventually mean less entertainment content because all of the sports rights are going to take up so much more of the budgets? Or is it. Is it that we're going to see the entire sports landscape transition to streaming over the next five years. I don't think that's true. I think linear is still valuable.
- [28:34]
B
Yeah. I mean, again, like the NFL is such a power vacuum that simply keeping the NFL on the broadcast networks to your earlier point is going to keep them alive and well. So I do not see that happening. Once the NFL is on broadcast, then all these other sports can also be on broadcast. And by the way, a lot of these other sports rights are locked up for years to come already. So we already know they're going to be on broadcast and, or cable to some degree. But I think the big story really is, are all of these sports that are showing increases in ratings going to just keep taking money out of the pie so that all of the non sports bear the brunt of this or are we going to see the second tier, the non NBA NFL sports have to take it on the chin because the money is just not there from them in this ecosystem. I think that is the real question that nobody knows what the answer is to.
- [29:30]
A
Or F1 do a deal exclusively with Apple where you just go on that service and then kind of disappear.
- [29:35]
B
Well, right. And F1 ended up getting a decent amount of money because Apple was willing to pay because no other sport really wanted to be, to be on Apple because they don't have the eyeballs.
- [29:44]
A
They got mls, they got Major League
- [29:46]
B
Soccer, which has not been a deal that all the parties have been in love with.
- [29:51]
A
Well, I'm just sad for Craig because I think that over the next five years, there's going to be an NFL game every day of December. So he will basically never see his family around.
- [30:01]
B
That's right.
- [30:02]
C
The NFL is, is messing with its one most powerful asset, which is scarcity. And, and they're getting rid of it.
- [30:09]
A
Exactly. So good luck to Craig. All right, Alex, thanks for coming on.
- [30:14]
B
My pleasure as always, Matt. Thanks.
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A
Okay, we are back with the call sheet. Craig, you're a big Ryan Gosling guy. I know. You, you, you talk about him often.
- [30:24]
C
I am. I love Goling. We just did or we're about to do the nice guys on the rewatchables. Big fan of his. Love that movie.
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A
I'm a fan. I, I, I'm not convinced that he is a huge box office draw. I believe we talked about this when the fall guy opened. He's, he's had hits. Obviously Barbie was huge. That was not sold on him. But he is a value ad and this is his first real test of Ryan Gosling star power with Project Hail Mary. And honestly, I think it's going to work. Do you agree? You've seen it?
- [31:01]
C
I did see the movie. I think families and kids are going to really like this movie. It is much more family friendly and sweet and kind than I expected. I think it's. There are certain marketing of it that I think tells you that it's a little bit like Interstellar, which I would disagree with. It is much more tonally like a family friendly version of the Martian. So I think like parents, kids, it's going to do really well and it's going to do really well on prime for years because it's something you can throw on. It's really funny and Gosling is really charismatic in it.
- [31:28]
A
Definitely taking my kid. And the reviews are great. Lord Miller, like deliver again. They have a pretty strong hit rate there. But for Amazon it's really interesting. This is by far their biggest test of the new strategy. They've got the new leadership in there. The highest grossing movie ever for Amazon is Creed 3, which was a legacy MGM title 276 worldwide. Their biggest like Amazon proper movie is probably red one from last year, which only got to 186 and that was hugely expensive. This movie is a $200 million about movie. So it's got to get up there to like 450, 500 to even be considered break even in theaters. And I think they're going to do it. The tracking for the opening weekend, NRG has it at 57, the last I looked. Other surveys have it in the mid-60s. I'm going to set the line at 63 million for the opening weekend and I will take the over.
- [32:33]
C
I think I'm going to take the under.
- [32:34]
B
Oh, why?
- [32:36]
C
That feels very high.
- [32:37]
A
You just got through saying that this is like, you know, all audiences, family friendly, crowd pleaser.
- [32:44]
C
That's all true. However, and I think that the movie will have great legs. However, like you said about Gosling. I don't know. You look at a movie like the Martian which opened to 55, Gravity opened at 55, Interstellar open at 47.
- [32:56]
A
But that was 15 years ago. Inflation would take that over where we are now.
- [33:01]
C
Sure. Well, okay, it's not like that was 30 years ago, but also more people went to the movies back then. I think we're in a little bit of a different era now and I think Interstellar was Nolan. This is Lord Miller, which I would say the average person doesn't know. And Gosling, like you said, we don't know yet if he is like a go to the movies draw. I think this movie's going to do really well, but that number feels a little high to me.
- [33:22]
A
That's a curveball. I would have thought you'd be very pro. You and Amy Kaufman, our friend, you're the two biggest Gosling supporters yet.
- [33:29]
C
You're now I love Gosling. I think he's the best SNL host right now. I think he's wonderful.
- [33:32]
A
Okay, well, we will do some accountability from last weekend.
- [33:37]
C
Yeah.
- [33:38]
A
I did not hit hit the under on reminders of him. It came in at 19 and I took the under on 14. So I need a win here. I think I'm going to get it. Taking the over on 63 for Project Hail Mary.
- [33:51]
C
You were correct, however, on the Oscars, which you took the under on 19.7 million.
- [33:56]
A
Yes. So sad for the Oscars. All right, that's the show for today. I want to thank my guest, Alex Sherman, producer Craig Horbeck, Arter, Jon Jones, and I want to thank you. One more show this week, Monster Energy. Everybody knows White Monster Zero Ultra. That's the OG it kicked off this whole zero sugar energy drink thing. But Ultra is a whole lineup now. You've got Strawberry Dreams, Blue Hawaiian Sunrise, and Vice Guava. And they all bring the Monster Energy punch. So if you've been living in the White can, branch out. Ultra's got a flavor for every vibe and every single one one is Zero Sugar Tap the banner. To learn more.
- [34:38]
B
It's tax season, and at LifeLock, we know you're tired of numbers, but here's a big one you need to hear.
- [34:44]
D
Billions.
- [34:45]
B
That's the amount of money and refunds the IRS has flagged for possible identity fraud. Now here's another big number. 100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it. Guaranteed. 101 last big number. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast for the threats you can't control. Terms apply.