Nothing is done until it’s done, but the NFL’s new TV deals are very close to being done.
John Ourand of Sports Business Journal reports that new deals officially could be announced by the league later this week or next week.
Per Ourand, deals with CBS and NBC are “virtually done.” Each network will pay roughly $2 billion per year to keep their current packages.
Ourand reports that FOX has been “pushing back” on the asking price of $2.25 billion per year, more than double its current rate of $1.1 billion annually. Ourand writes that the current gap isn’t enough to jeopardize the deals.
Last week, Ourand reported that a deal is in place between the NFL and Disney for Monday Night Football. The league took affirmative steps to deny that report. Some believe that the NFL wants to preserve its ability to announce the deals on its own, with no advance leaks. Disney is expected to pay in the range of $2.6 billion annually. The package will put ABC back in the Super Bowl rotation, and it’s expected to include some ABC simulcast of Monday night games.
Finally, Thursday Night Football “appears to be headed” to Amazon Prime, per Ourand. Amazon is expected to pay a fee “well above” the current $730 million that FOX and Amazon currently pay together for the package. That deal could be shorter than the rest of the deals, sine it continues to be, as Ourand says, “experimental” in nature.
The league wants to get the new deals in place before officially adopting a seventeenth regular-season game for 2021 and beyond. It’s not believed that the new deals will have a major impact, if any, on the 2021 salary cap.