PIECE OF ACTION
NFL running after network investment deal
The NFL is talking to networks about buying a stake in its cable channel as part of the bidding for the rights to broadcast Thursday night football games, The Post has learned.
The NFL has a oneyear, $300 million deal with CBS to broadcast eight Thursday night games.
But other networks — Fox, NBC and Turner’s TNT — are eager to land the franchise, which would be the last major deal to come up for grabs for years.
So the league is shopping an extended 16game package, along with a possible stake in the NFL Network, in a move that could protect its cable turf and score a big payday, sources said.
The NFL is concerned about the NFL Network’s future in an era in which even Disney’s cable powerhouse ESPN is seeing subscriber declines.
If the NFL Network were part of a bigger programming entity, it could protect the fees cable operators and other distributors pay for the right to carry the channel.
The NFL Network collects $1.31 per subscriber per month from payTV distributors, according to SNL Kagan estimates.
The NFL declined to comment.
If the NFL decides to sell broadcast rights to the network’s 16 games, its distribution partners will likely seek to ratchet down affiliate fees during the next set of carriage negotiations, sources said.
The NFL Network’s contracts with cable, satellite and telecom operators stipulate the league must keep eight games exclusively on the network.
The NFL aired all of the Thursday night games until 2013, when it struck a deal with CBS to simulcast eight of them — even though distributors pay the NFL Network at the same rate.
“Cable operators weren’t savvy enough to catch the change,” said a source famil iar with the talks. “The network was able to retain the affiliate revenue on the NFL and switch the value.”
Several sources say the league is aware of the potential issue and is trying to figure ways to retain its leverage.
With Verizon and cable operators looking to create skinny bundle offerings, the NFL senses a potential vulnerability.
Sources said the NFL also held discussions about selling the network to ESPN, but that deal fell apart because the league had tried to retain control over what games would actually appear there.
This time around, ESPN appears to be absent from negotiations for the extended package, which analysts predict will fetch more than $600 million a year, according to the Hollywood Reporter, which broke the news. ESPN declined comment. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was also in Silicon Valley earlier this month, discussing streaming rights with big tech players.
“It makes sense to see if there’s a new type of buyer out there,” said Chris Bevilacqua, cofounder of sports media advisory BHV. “Everyone is trying to figure out the payTV ecosystem. The NFL is straddling that right now.”