Today, ESPN renewed a deal with the NFL for a whopping $15.2 billion to keep airing the “Monday Night Football” program throughout 2021.
The New York Times states that, “At $1.9 billion a year, ESPN will be paying 73 percent more than the $1.1 billion a year it has been spending for ‘Monday Night,’ the highest rated program on cable television.”
In the earlier deal ESPN held with the NFL, which expires in 2013, ESPN received no playoff games and could not carry a Super Bowl, which was rotated amongst NBC, Fox, and CBS. The only right ESPN had was to carry 17 regular-season games a year.
According to Reuters, “While ‘Monday Night Football’ is the cornerstone of the deal, the agreement will also result in more than 500 new hours of NFL-branded studio programming each year. ‘Sunday NFL Countdown’ pre-game show will expands to three hours, ‘NFL Live’ will expands to one hour year-round, and ESPN will create more shows, including ‘NFL 32’ and ‘NFL Kickoff,’ both debuting this week.”
“The value of the N.F.L. to us is the ubiquity of the sport across our platforms all the time,” said John Skipper, the executive vice president for content at ESPN. “It’s just stupendous for us. It’s daily product — we don’t have a day without the N.F.L.”
More information regarding the new, upcoming ESPN/NFL shows can be found on the ESPN website, espn.com.
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