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One of the biggest downsides of my recent escalating issues with insomnia and stomach pain has been I’ve had to refamilairize myself with the DIRECTV package my roommate and I still continue to receive. My TV has a remote and my computer doesn’t–a dumb reason, to be sure, but you try moving when you’re in agony at 2 am and tell me what you might be open to spending in order to find something that will finally put you to sleep.
And as I doom-scroll through the options at that time two realities hit me in the face. Those stories about zombie networks are actually understated. I’m stunned how redundant so many of those once-vibrant entities have become, even to the extent that there’s fewer creative promos in rotation of their stagnant night-long marathons. At least diginets like MeTV and my newly found overnight savior MeTV Toons at least try to put lipstick on a pig. Those now-afterthought channels being cast off into allegedly profit-seeking divisions by the likes of Warner Brothers Discovery, Turner and Paramount Global aren’t even attempting to boost audience one iota to grow the promotional base for their streaming originals, whose promotions are taking up an increasing amount of real estate on their air.
But for as egregious as those tone-deaf approaches appear it was nothing compared to the shock I got in refamilizaring myself with the NFL Network, which I tend to do when I get my first fantasy football preview edition as I did yesterday. Not that I spent as much time with it as I once did even when the season was in full force. Aside from the occasional live game from Europe on pre-dawn Sundays or the few events they still have exclusive coverage of, such as the NFL Combines, there’s little they offer that isn’t otherwise available elsewhere these days.
That wasn’t the case when it launched in 2003; indeed, they didn’t just copy the ESPN model, they improved upon it. They gave opportunities to newly retired players with more current perspectives to hone their skills and via the deft direction of one of my favorite Bristol alumni, Rich Eisen, and his boss, the multi-talented and extremely generous Mark Shapiro, they aggressively programmed six days a week with longer-form original content and studio programming that was even active in the off-season.
Flash forward to now. ESPN has augmented its coverage dramatically and has leaned into NFL-first content in every one of its daily shows, even in the most content-lacking months. Podcasts from well-informed entities like THE ATHLETIC and THE RINGER have mushroomed and now increasingly lean into video availability. Thursday Night Football is long gone from NFLN, now the exclusive domain of Amazon Prime Video, Even a couple of those Sunday morning games have already moved to ESPN+.
So while this story from this morning’s FRONT OFFICE SPORTS newsletter may have been eyebrow-raising to me it wasn’t a total shock, Here’s how the ever-diligent Eric Fisher and David Rumsey reported it just as I was finally in enough of a zone to drift off earlier this morning:
NFL owners have been informally told to be ready for a potential vote next month on a long-discussed acquisition of league media assets by ESPN parent company Walt Disney Co., Front Office Sports sources confirmed.
For four years, the league has considered selling in-house media holdings such as the NFL Network and NFL RedZone, among other properties, with Disney easily standing as the most engaged among major networks in the on-again, off-again process. The NFL, in turn, could also acquire an equity stake in ESPN, which would complete another long-planned initiative on the company’s side of the table to potentially bring in outside investors.
If completed, the move would also give Disney and ESPN an important boost as the NFL is all but certain to opt out of its current domestic media-rights deals in 2029 and 2030.
ESPN, meanwhile, is preparing to debut its direct-to-consumer service, and having additional NFL content could provide a critical enhancement to that effort. “This looks to be coming to a head, and there are some external reasons for that,” an FOS source said of the NFL.
I’ve already laid out some of those external reasons. The overall decline of linear networks only adds to them. Those declines are particularly true of sport-specific networks who have all lost access to millions of homes as cord-cutting and cord-nevers have grown dramatically. But unlike their brethren such as MLBN, NHLN and NBA TV, there’s no nightly rebroadcast of an RSN game or recap of the previous weeknight’s games to attract even casual engagement. And on Sunday nights there are plenty of viable alternatives both via ESPN as well as pretty much every commercial affiliate in any market of consequence. When you’ve spread out your coverage across all four major networks there’s a business advantage to expanding your commitment to those recap shows. More availabilities, greater frequency, more GRPs. Something’s gotta replace those zombie network declines in media plans.
And then a bit later this morning afterI groggingly awakened, we got this additional tidbit from THE ATHLETIC’s swashbuckling Andrew Marchand:
“The Rich Eisen Show” will be the new centerpiece of ESPN Radio, with its program airing nationally from noon-3 p.m. ET beginning Sept. 2, sources briefed on the move told The Athletic. In May, The Athletic reported that a strong possibility existed for Eisen’s program to be a staple of ESPN Radio. It will also appear on Disney+ and ESPN+, as well as ESPN’s full direct-to-consumer app that is set to debut in the fall. The Rich Eisen Podcast Network will also be on ESPN’s platforms and will include a new, yet-to-be-named podcast that will have Eisen, a former SportsCenter host from 1996-2003, interviewing colleagues from his run behind the desk.
Funny how such a cost-effective and cross-promotional no-brainer never came to pass during the more than two decades where Eisen was (is?) the most recognizable and promotable face of the network. And now he’s having a homecoming with the place where he first came to prominence as Stuart Scott’s sidekick in what was the second most popular SportsCenter duo of its most popular era, a younger and hipper compliment to Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann. I know I’m eagerly awaiting what and how Eisen will say, being allowed to or not, when September rolls around.
If those facts alone doesn’t paint a picture that signals that NFL Networks days are numbered, and not in larger digits, little else could. And unlike those other networks I flip through, the motivation to expeditiously put a stake in its heart is clearly strong.
Meanwhile, you’ll forgive me if I leave you to ponder the likelihood of this predicition coming to pass. It’s time for me to try and take another nap, which means I’m gonna flip on NFLN once more.