Two Great Stories on Why The NFL and ESPN are Struggling
There are two major sports media stories right now– the NFL’s declining ratings, and ESPN’s declining viewership. They go hand-in-hand. ESPN doles out the most money of any of the networks, by far, to sports leagues for broadcast rights. If their subscriber base is shrinking because people are cutting the cord – about $7 from your cable bill goes to ESPN – then they’ll have less money to pay sports leagues, which means teams make less from revenue sharing and players earn less as a result. The entire sports paradigm is built around TV viewership, and ESPN and the NFL are the respective leaders on each end of this relationship. If the NFL is struggling with its prime time ratings, including ESPN’s Monday Night Football, and ESPN is losing viewers and the means to pay for future broadcast rights, then the entire industry could be due for a correction.
There are two articles this week that brilliantly explain each problem. First up, Outkick The Coverage has an excellent article on what could happen to ESPN. If you read one thing this week, consider choosing this. Here’s an excerpt:
ESPN presently pays $1.9 billion a year for Monday Night Football.
What will the NFL want from ESPN for Monday Night Football in 2021? More money, right? The NFL has gotten used to television revenue only going up. Even if, as is the case this year, its Monday Night Football ratings are plummeting. Will ESPN be able to afford to keep the NFL and pay more money despite having lost nearly 30% of its subscriber base in the ten years of the existing MNF contract? That seems highly unlikely doesn’t it? But can ESPN exist as a network without NFL games? Remember, it’s not just the NFL games, it’s all the ancillary content that ESPN builds around the NFL games, think about the hours of studio programming that ESPN devotes to pro football. ESPN justifies its sky high cost per month to cable and satellite companies based on the games it provides exclusively on cable, can ESPN extract an increase in subscriber fees from cable and satellite companies when its deals expire without the NFL games? So how much more money will the NFL be able to extract from ESPN? Or will this be the moment in time when the entire sports industry finally realizes that the bubble has popped?
The entire argument here is built around the fact that ESPN is losing cable subscriber revenue. I’ve written about this before, and explained that if ESPN were to offer a standalone streaming package, it would cost way more than you’re currently paying for ESPN in order to make up for all the lost subscribers. I’m in total agreement that ESPN is in big trouble as more people cut the cord. But one item not addressed in this article is something I wrote about after ESPN said they’re planning to launch a streaming service next year– and that’s ESPN positioning themselves in all the major streaming bundles.
I’m firmly of the belief that cord cutting will ultimately not be about cost savings, but rather viewer experience. It just makes so much sense that, in 2016, if you’re subscribing to a service, program or channel, you should be able to watch it anywhere, anytime, and however you’d like. Cable companies and networks have an incentive to work against this. Streaming bundles, like Playstation Vue and Sling TV, don’t save you much money, but they do make your experience much better.
So why, Kyle, would the thing that most people seemingly hate most about cable – bundles with channels they don’t want – carry over to streaming? It’s about convenience. Right now we’re in a bit of a transition. You cut the cord, you get Netflix, maybe HBO Now, possibly Hulu, and you likely already have Amazon Instant Video. But if you want to watch sports, you’ll need either cable credentials to watch certain events, or an MLB.tv-NBA League Pass-Center Ice subscription for others. Want network TV? You’ll need a tuner. New movies? You can rent them from Amazon or Apple. You see where I’m going here. Suddenly, you have 5, 6, 7 bills where previously you had 2 or 3. This is what makes Playstation Vue and Sling TV appealing– they offer a reasonably priced bundle built for streaming.
Further, unlike newspapers and websites or radio and podcasts, the shift from established media to independent content creators won’t be as easy with video. Writing online is cheaper and actually easier than writing for a newspaper. It can also be better. I’d like to think that reading this website is better than reading a newspaper or Philly.com. Now, I’m not saying the volume of coverage or quality of reporting is as great, but I think a minute spent reading this website is more interesting and entertaining than reading Philly.com. All it costs me to produce it is essentially my Fios bill. Podcasting is a little bit more expensive – a good mic may cost you $200 – but it, too, can provide better content than what’s on the radio. Video is different. Yes, anyone can stream from their phone, but it is much harder to create compelling video content than it is to create compelling written or audio content. With video, you’re asking someone to devote their entire attention to what you’re giving them. That’s easy enough in short bursts, but to get someone for any length of time, you have to have some production value. That takes time and costs money. So, fragmentation in video content will be harder to come by, which means the incumbents have a distinct advantage in that they already have the equipment and, more importantly, know-how to create watchable content (even if we can niggle over what makes for compelling content). And this all makes the case for streaming bundles that include established media outlets, something ESPN has been willing to be a part of. I may not like ESPN, but as a sports fan and given what I do, I need it, and any cord-cutting option that didn’t include it in some capacity would be a non-starter. I imagine that’s the case for many people. So ESPN will be able to offset some of its lost revenue through streaming bundles.
A correction is certainly coming, but I don’t think ESPN is doomed the way this article is implying. Though, if they lose NFL and NBA rights, it will be a much tougher sell, and their existence in bundles, whether cable or streaming, will be even less of a necessity than it is today.
The second part of this is the sports leagues themselves. The NFL has a huge ratings problem, and that’s particularly concerning when you consider that MLB and the NBA have experienced near-record-setting ratings lately. Granted, those came during two hugely entertaining Game 7s, but the fact is, those leagues aren’t experiencing the drastic declines the NFL is this year, which Bloomberg dug into in this lengthy piece today:
This is the NFL on prime time: the greatest snoozefest on turf. Pro football, which has riveted TV viewers for decades, is now repelling them. Ratings are down across the board, particularly during prime-time games. So far this season, Monday Night Football ratings are down 20 percent from this time last year, according to Nielsen data. Sunday Night Football has fallen 18.5 percent. Thursday night games are down 21.8 percent. The Titans-Jaguars game averaged a little more than 5 million viewers, down 71 percent from the same week in 2015.
I’ve written about all the possible reasons NFL ratings might be down. Bloomberg examined many of them. Everyone is baffled by the sharp decline, but it’s likely due to a combination of factors. The larger story, though, is that ESPN is struggling, and the NFL is struggling, and if those trends continue – which they likely will to some degree – we’re going to see a shift in how much networks will pay for broadcast rights, which has a downstream effect on the entire industry. Even if ESPN is able to find its footing in streaming bundles, their revenues will still decline from what they are now, because they won’t be getting revenue from, like, every person in the country. There will still be some amount of fragmentation.
My suggestion? ESPN and other sports networks and outlets, even CSN, have the infrastructure to create compelling video and audio content. They need to redefine what that means, though. It’s not debate, but I’d argue it is programs like 30 For 30, behind-the-scenes access, post-game shows and live coverage, and the ability to get good interviews. Doing so will keep them relevant and necessary as people cut the cord and decide whether or not they actually need them. And that will allow them to generate enough revenue to continue paying for broadcast rights fees.