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ESPN’s NFL Bias to Become Even More Biased Now That The Shield Has a 10% Equity Stake
By Kyle Pagan
Published:
Listen, I don’t really care about the NFL buying 10% of ESPN. If you’re worried about your news being unbiased in 2025 I’ve got CNN, FOX, and now CBS to sell you. Media companies all over the world have an inherent bias one way or another. You read the Wall Street Journal and you’ll get a different headline than you would in the New York Times and they’re talking about the same thing. So if you’re worried about ESPN reporting things with an NFL bias you weren’t paying attention to the last decade, when they were reporting things with an NFL bias – and that’s before The Shield took a 10% stake in exchange for NFL Network, NFL Fantasy, and RedZone.
But you know what? From what I’ve seen so far the deal looks like it’ll be a good one. The more sports and broadcasting under one umbrella the better (sometimes) for our pockets and ability to find things more easily.
They’re also keeping Scott Hanson for RedZone:
Currently they’re building out an ESPN direct-to-consumer product that will have everything ESPN+ has as well as all of the programming NFL Network did. That means RedZone and a treasure trove of NFL Network content. I recently cut YouTube TV after finally cutting the cord a couple months prior. What’s that called when you cut a streamer that showed broadcast cable? Cloud Cutter? Anyway I’m giving NFL+ on Roku and Peacock Premium a try so I can get Phillies, Sixers, and Flyers for significantly less than the $82 a month YTTV was charging…or so I hope. I’ll definitely be subscribing to the new ESPN DTC product they’re launching, which will be $29.99/month or $299.99/annually. Not too bad, especially if you’re a WWE fan.
The best thing to come from this though might be that there will be no more doubleheader MNF games! Rejoice! If there was ever a question of if there was sucha thing as too much football, that was answered with doubleheader MNF games on ESPN. I never understood who thought that was a good idea. We’re all going to watch MNF. Why would you cut into your viewership by having a game start midway through another when you own that day already?
Four NFL games are up for bid, according to Matt Yoder at Awful Announcing:
With ESPN licensing three games and moving four from the existing MNF schedule to complete NFL Network’s seven game lineup, that leaves four additional NFL game windows that are unaccounted for from the original NFL Network slate. Those games will essentially become free agents in the hands of the NFL, who can put them up for bid.
We have seen the NFL greatly expand its schedule whether that be through more international games, with digital giants like Netflix and YouTube, and new windows like Black Friday and Christmas Day. Every network in existence is chomping at the bit to get a slice of the NFL pie, and the league has now found a way to carve out an additional four games to sell, expanding the possibility for someone to either expand their current slate or find a way to get yet another potential rights partner on board.
Will this mean more games to Netflix? Amazon? Apple? Roku? Who knows. But I feel like in 2025 you have every streaming service on God’s Green Earth so wherever these games go it won’t matter. Plus, the NFL is good in that they’ll show the game on local cable still if the Eagles are playing exclusively on a streaming service.
That’s it for now. It’ll be interesting to see how ESPN capitalizes on this. They’re lucky the NFL was willing to throw them a life preserver. The Worldwide Leader hasn’t been exactly in its heyday for much of the last decade and I don’t know many people who consume it outside of live sports and their social channels. Now they’re buying talent like Pat McAfee and Katie Feeney instead of growing internally and maybe that’s what the future holds for all of these networks. Netflix did it with Shane Gillis and Tires and Tony Hinchcliffe’s Kill Tony. Amazon did it when they gave the Kelces $100 million. Buy the audience in hopes they’ll migrate over to your platform. It’s an amazing opportunity for content creators right now.
Kyle writes blog posts and does Man on the Street-style videos all around Philadelphia. He graduated from Temple University (a basketball school) in 2015. contact: k.pagan@sportradar.com