ESPN and the NFL have signed an eight-year extension to their media rights agreement that is worth $1.8B per year, a whopping 63% increase over the average price of the current deal according to John Ourand and Adam Kaplan of the Sports Business Journal. A formal announcement of the deal, which was first reported in January, will likely come today. The deal will keep “MNF†on ESPN through the ‘21 season. It also gives ESPN a wide swath of digital rights that will allow the network to stream live games via broadband and tablets, as part of the cable industry’s “TV Everywhere†initiative. Source: theredzone.org
Anyone that has cable or satellite. The networks rely solely on ad revenue, while ESPN gets both ad revenue and subscription revenue from the cable/satellite companies. They are without a doubt the most expensive channel on your cable lineup (unless you have HBO/Showtime or some other pay channel).
