NFL Network and ESPN?

by MaPatsFan on Jun 21, 2008 3:18 PM EDT in New England Patriots News

The Los Angeles Times followed up on a Wall Street Journal report that the NFL is talking to ESPN about a possible partnership for distrubution of programming and, more importantly, the 8 NFL games broadcast each season exclusively on the NFL Network.

If you remember, there was a HUGE brew haha come the Patriots final game of the season with the New York Giants. The NFL Network-only broadcast angered football fans, especially fans of the Patriots and Giants. At 15-0, the New England Patriots were poised to finish with a perfect regular season and the Giants were gearing up to be the team to stop them. The NFL decided, at the last minute, to allow NBC and CBS to broadcast the game as well.

If the ESPN deal goes through, this may not bode well for cable providers like Comcast who routinely crap all over their football crazy customers by only providing NFL Network on exclusive programming packages which, I might add, usually cost you a pretty penny to add to your programming. Don't get me wrong, the NFL is not being benevolent nor are they blind to the fact that ESPN reaches 96 million homes and the NFL Network is reaching only 40 million; can you say advertising revenue?

In my mind, anything that brings more games to more people is a good thing, as long as it doesn't cost us an arm and a leg. I wonder how the cable providers are going to respond? Will they try to pressure ESPN away from the deal because they'll lose revenue? Will they threaten to put ESPN in one of those premium tier packages? Will they demand a cut from ESPN/NFL in some way, shape or form?

This oughta be interesting.

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sometimes a little competition is a good thing

Rich Eisen and crew are a lively bunch, usually searching for a bit of humor or lightness in their take on football news. Eisen’s book, Total Access, gives terrific insight into how the show came to be, and a behind-the-scenes look at all that goes into each production. They’re all basically frat boys with the best job in the world, and loving every minute of it.

I’d hate to see ESPN’s heavy hand destroy the chemistry or make-up of the NFL Network, and feel a bit of trepidation regarding a buyout or merger. There’s no love lost between me and Comcast however. Last season they had us by the short hairs – and knew it – so we forked over the $7.00/per month so as not to miss a game or highlight reel.

Immediately after ordering, the Comcast phone representative tried to charge us an additional one-time $5.00 fee to add the channel. Politely as I could, I reminded her that we already HAD it and since they were the ones who REMOVED it in the first place, we shouldn’t have to pay to put it back. She agreed to waive the fee.

Keep the faith!

by Marima on Jun 21, 2008 9:45 PM EDT reply actions