• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, January 16, 2024

Is Walt Disney's ESPN moving to a deal where the NFL takes some ownership of the big cable sports TV network? That was according to a report in the New York Post.

Representatives from ESPN and NFL did not respond to TV Watch inquiries by press time.

How groundbreaking would this be? Perhaps it would depend on what non-NFL sports rights TV owners really want from the big sports network.

What would TV advertisers think?

ESPN has been subject to much discussion about a business transition for a number of years. This includes spinning off the sports network from Disney itself as a separate publicly traded company.

This comes as the trend for ESPN and other networks is clearly apparent.

Cord-cutting of pay TV distribution systems continues to decline, regularly cutting into the business by 6% to 10% per year. The biggest and perhaps most lucrative cable TV network faces a streaming world that continues to move rapidly.

What would the NFL do for ESPN? Give it more wherewithal when it comes to making -- what many expect would be its most significant business decision: moving its entire live, linear TV network to a streaming platform.

The NFL, of course, is the biggest TV and overall sports property by far. One can understand that aligning with the biggest sports TV network group makes -- on paper -- a lot of sense.

But what might -- if anything -- might it mean for other sports franchises --  say, the NBA or the NHL? 

We can imagine the NFL probably will not have any operational control in terms of scheduling or the news editorial decision-making for ESPN's major “SportsCenter” programming. 

Still, the NFL would be most likely to want and demand some input for its huge investment.

At the same time, according to the report, ESPN would take over operational control of NFL Media, which includes streaming platform NFL+, the linear TV channels, the NFL Network and NFL Red Zone.

NFL team owners need to approve the deal -- as well as players.

Does that make sense to both parties? And what about TV advertisers?