I think this is great thing as the economics of large sports salaries have been artificially inflated by surreptitiously charging end users for things they might not want. As the internet continues to alter the landscape around content choice, traditional providers are going to have no choice but to push back on the networks which will, in turn, push back on the leagues which will, in turn, push back on high sports salaries. I wouldn't expect any of the limited sets of providers to accept any more price hikes from the sports networks. Sports costs have to come back down to earth as consumption specializes. It already has or will happen with other forms of content too.
Everyone knows the NFL could reduce injuries even more, but not at the cost of eyeballs. In a purely capitalistic view, players are much more expendable/replaceable than viewers. As a side effect, players will have to accept the risk of being injured for less money than they are now. While a couple of high profile NFL players have retired due to CTE concerns, in general there are many humans willing to make that sacrifice for even a fraction of what players are paid today.
Salary caps are about how your society values parity in whichever sport it is applied to. Regardless of the salary cap argument, do expect this to affect soccer as well, though further into the future. Right now many of those salaries, bumps for league promotion, etc are based on similar revenue sharing based on TV deals. And as US soccer eyeballs have grown, US TV deals have just added dollars to the already existing and new TV deals in soccer. They are on the upswing at the moment (kinda), but as fans get fed up with these draconian viewership requirements they are going to have to fight for the same in-between viewers (i.e. ones that would watch, but don't have to at all costs) that US sports are vying for across new mediums.
I should clarify that it won't affect the top teams in these situations. Man U and Barca and what not will still be fine due to ancillary sales and their brand. Rather it will affect the vast majority of other teams. Some owners are willing to take a hit, but only so much and for so long (except the super rich ones for which their team is their play thing).
ESPN just has to be the highest bidder. Someone has got to air the games.
Really? Football has been played without network coverage. I could see a future whereby teams handled their own streaming, or where the NFL did it all through NFL.com. The days of "air" are quickly coming to an end. I'm a little surprised that Netflix, Google or even FB aren't bidding.
And if NFL owners want more people into the stadiums, curtailing broadcast coverage has been the traditional means. Ticket prices are already so high that it isn't inconceivable that they take it to the next level and market a game like a rock concert: be in the room or miss out.
I could see a future whereby teams handled their own streaming
Does someone? Sure, professional football has been very popular for many decades, but there's nothing about the order of the universe which states that it will remain so forever. We don't have chariot races, or gladiators, or bear-baiting — maybe someday we won't have professional football either.
I keep seeing pictures of half-empty stands behind kneeling football players, and ultimately if the NFL destroys its value by alienating too many fans with politics, there's no reason the entire business won't or shouldn't collapse.
Someone will pick up the rights to show the games, or the league will offer their own service, or the games won't be played on Mondays/Thursdays and will go back to just being a Sunday sport.
Regarding losing their audience and destroying their value:
I stopped following the NFL not because of politics (the kneeling thing hadn't yet started), but because their product was no longer worth my time. Thirty+ years as a fan, watching nearly every single game the local team played and I turned it off a couple years ago. It should not take 3+ hours for 60 minutes of "play", the bulk of which involves no action. It became so overloaded with commercials that it hit the point I was no longer interested. For a short while there was hope, they had the "game in 60" replays on the NFL network. That could have been amazing. Unfortunately, they screwed that up too, showing "all the action" in the first half (good!), then a shortened version of the halftime show (why?), then "all the action" in the third quarter (good!), and then they'd jump to the end of the fourth quarter (wtf?). Why did we need a halftime show when the whole thing a) is being condensed down to an hour, b) is a replay, and c) they sacrifice showing comebacks in order to bring us talking heads?
I think they've been losing their audience for a while; the politics is just the latest (and possibly biggest) factor in their decline. If they turn things around, great. If not, I won't feel sorry for them.
Think about it: an NFL team sponsored by the alt right vs. one funded by Ben&Jerry's.
They can just keep the salary cap low and stop paying for new stadiums.
Yes. It broadcasts < 20 NFL games per year. This is not a lot of airtime for a 24h sports network. It does spend a considerable amount of time talking about NFL, but that can continue whether it broadcasts their games or not. It has a 3-hour lead-in show on Sunday morning that gets sizable ratings while broadcasting zero games that day. Nobody subscribes to ESPN/cable just for MNF.
In contrast, ESPN broadcasts dozens of college football games per year and spends probably an equal amount of time - or more - discussing those. It spends about $1.4b per year in total on those TV rights which have lucrative advertising and cable subscriber value. That's in addition to all of the other sports ESPN broadcasts.
ESPN will bid less for MNF because they can't afford it any more but mostly because the ratings don't fully justify the current cost. The overall success of ESPN doesn't hinge solely on whether or not they broadcast any NFL games, it's based on how sensible the price is for the rights they own. They have plenty of other content to fill airtime that people watch and will pay a reasonable subscriber price for, even if that's not quite as much as they extract now from cable providers.
Cord cutters are upending the model, requiring ESPN to swim on its own without subsidies; my personal opinion is that there aren’t enough sports fans to support it except as an over the top app similar to what HBO GO is trying to do.
MNF has a long tradition before moving to ESPN. There are lots of fans who don't have a pay tv package that have been missing out on MNF.
I can name a hundred things leagues have done to dilute and harm their respective games in order to increase profits.
Back of the envelope, every viewer of MNF would need to pay $200 just to keep MNF and one wildcard game. More to get Sunday, Thursday, the playoffs and the Superbowl. Easily $300 - $400 per viewer a year.
That's a hard sell.
Can't watch ALL games live right? That's hardly completely superior. IMO, NFL would make less money on direct sales than they do when they charge networks which charge all cable subscribers (even via retransmission fees for those of us who can't get OTA) AND charge advertisers. That double dip is going to net more money than a specialized service for NFL fans.
You can't on television, either.
I pay about $30 to Sling TV just for Redzone. I've never watched any of the other channels that come with it. When the regular season ends I just cancel Sling.
I'd be happy handing over the $150/season or so directly to the NFL. Unfortunately, I'm probably worth more to advertisers just because of that.
They placed their emphasis on things other than sports. Sports fans will pay for sports, not politics.
That would allow the NFL to maintain ESPN as potentially the top tier while introducing new suitors with lower tiers and maintaining their revenue in aggregate.
The losers in this scenario are the fans: forced to purchase several subscriptions if they want to watch every game.
The irony of my comment is I'm making plans to watch KC vs Denver... and it's Monday.
The numbers have been decreasing for the past 6 years. It has nothing to do with NFL becoming political.
http://www.businessinsider.com/espn-losing-subscribers-not-r...
I'd be shocked if politics haven't hurt ESPN, too, but the effect is probably completely swamped by changes in viewing habits and a reduction in Disney's clout with cable companies.