ESPN/TNN lose Arena Football to NBC

[Tannerman]

The Arena Football League just signed their first broadcast deal with NBC, taking the games away from ESPN, ABC, and TNN in 2003. They didn't show as many games anyway on the Disney networks, so this is probably a good thing for the AFL in the long run (league has been around for 16 years, games are entertaining and should not be associated with the mess known as the XFL...). Plus, given that ABC/ESPN landed the NBA, they probably don't need a small league like the AFL. However, if the NFL exercises it's option to buy a large stake in the AFL, things could get interesting for existing rights holders regarding promotion and such.

Here's the news release:

NBC Sports & Arena Football League announce exclusive National Television partnership

Deal begins in 2003 and includes regular season, all playoff games and ArenaBowl
NEW YORK (March 5, 2002) - NBC Sports and the Arena Football League have reached an agreement to become revenue sharing partners in an historic national television contract beginning with the 2003 season. The announcement was made today by AFL Commissioner C. David Baker and Dick Ebersol, Chairman, NBC Sports & Olympics.

The historic multi-year deal agreement calls for NBC to share in the revenues derived from the increasing value of AFL franchises, carries no rights payment and renews in perpetuity at NBC’s option.

NBC will televise 15 AFL regular season games, all postseason games and the league’s championship game, ArenaBowl. When the deal kicks off in 2003, the AFL will have teams in 20 cities, including eight of the top 10 U.S. television markets.

"The Arena Football League is thrilled to be in partnership with NBC Sports, today's preeminent sports brand builder,” AFL Commissioner Baker stated. “We look forward to working with NBC and our partners to present the high-scoring and heart-stopping excitement of Arena Football to an ever-growing number of fans in North America and around the world."

Click for full story

 

[d-r]

NBC sports is in bad shape. I porbably don't have all this right, but...

In football, they lost their coverage of the nfl years ago. NFC are on fox and AFC games on CBS with abc having Monday nights and espn sunday night cable rights. NBC's last NFL game was the 1998 super bowl, but I'm not sure where they are on future super bowls - the last one was on Fox, before that CBS, next year is ABC (and Madden). I think that after the 1998 nbc super bowl ABC got 3, CBS got 2, and FOX got 3, so I guess ABS still has 2, Fox 2, and CBS 1 to go. I'm not at all sure though. The xfl was a pretty big flop. In college football, they only have notre dame home games, with cbs having first dibs on the SEC and big east, ABC having first dibs on on the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, and Pac 10, and second and on dibs for all games going to espn, espn regional, some regional affiliates (JP) and fox regional. NBC may have some minor bowl games (not sure, but I don't think so), but the mythical championship "series" belongs to ABC and most other bowls to espn, cbs, fox.

NBC has now lost the nba to disney and turner, I don't know about the wnba. (this is a pretty big deal for nbc, they used to cross promote the nba a lot - Saturday morning shows, etc.) NBA minor league on epsn. College basketball season is cbs and espn, and march madness is cbs. Fox has hockey. Nascar is split between NBC and Fox. Fox has bought the exclusive post season rights to major league baseball, which used to alternate with nbc. The baseball season is split between multiple cable and broadcast channels, with Fox having regular season games and I think none on NBC.

So they have some golf, notre dame football, some nascar and the olympics through 2008. Am I missing something? I think they probably did pretty well with the recent winter games, because it really plugged in to a patriotic sense that we all needed (and they cross-promoted it like crazy with nbc nightly news and the today show from Utah). But they really did a poor job with the Sydney games, with all the up close and personal stories and lack of live coverage. No wonder Costas is talking with Disney. I guess they felt like they needed something.

DR

 

[All Aboard]

d-r, you did a very good job with that post. But, I think Fox dumped hockey and ABC/ESPN now has all of it (I think). You've covered it, NBC is left with virtually nothing. NBC Sports really doesn't exist anymore.

 

[Tannerman]

NBC Sports really doesn't exist anymore.

The question is, however... are they making out better financially because of it?

 

[HorizonsFan]

Is not having arena football really a loss?

 

[Tannerman]

Well, probably not... I'm just a fan, that's all.