# A Good Example of Why Your Directv Rates Are Going up



## jdh8668 (Nov 7, 2007)

ESPN appears to be on the verge of paying the NFL a huge sum to extend its contract to televise “Monday Night Football,” Broadcasting & Cable reports.

The amount will be as much as $1.9 billion annually, the story says. The current agreement between the sports network and the NFL--an eight-year deal for a total of about $8.8 billion--expires after the 2013 season.

The new deal would reportedly add nine or 10 years to the current contract.

Too bad the NFL & their players aren't making any money. They should try living on my salary instead of thinking about striking.


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## paulman182 (Aug 4, 2006)

Well, I'm glad part of the increase goes to something I really enjoy watching.


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## lwilli201 (Dec 22, 2006)

The NFL is bringing in over 3 Billion a year on TV contracts. Where is all that money going. If it were going to the teams, that would be near 94 Mil per team. I do not think the teams get any where near that much. I do not see the NFL Network losing money with money coming in from carriage charges and advertising revenue. And they have no money to take care of veteran players in need. Give me a break.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFL_on_television#List_of_NFL_television_contracts


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

lwilli201 said:


> The NFL is bringing in over 3 Billion a year on TV contracts. Where is all that money going. If it were going to the teams, that would be near 94 Mil per team. I do not think the teams get any where near that much.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFL_on_television#List_of_NFL_television_contracts


Considering some of the salaries... and the salary cap...

I did some quick looking... 2010 (this season) was an uncapped year...

But 2009 was $127 million... and some figures I saw had the cheapest team being ~$40 million under the cap... which would mean spending nearly $90 million.

So basically, that TV money goes in a hurry!


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## RAD (Aug 5, 2002)

Why limit the reason for cost increases to just sports? 

Charlie Sheen is getting $1,250,000 PER episode for Two and a Half Men. Heck, even the kid that plays Jake on that show is getting $250,000 per episode. How about a movie star like Will Smith, he made $20,000,000+20% of the gross for the movie Hancock. 

Then don't forget the exec's running things, like Leslie Moonves, CEO of CBS. His compensation package for 2009 was a cool $43,238,875 (plus I bet he wasn't flying coach on Southwest when it was traveling). 

Ever watch the closing credits for some of these shows and movies, that's a lot of folks that have to be paid. Sure the majority of them aren't making the big bucks but there's also a bunch there pulling down the bucks were a increase that DIRECTV is asking doesn't even cause them to blink. 

Just saying that all those dollars have to come from somewhere and that somewhere is from our checkbooks. So when you hear that some rookie NFL player is getting $35,000,000 before he even plays a game, or Charlie Sheen will be making $2,500,000 an episode in 2011 you know where that money is coming from, you.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

At that rate... Charlie Sheen is pulling down more money than most professional athletes by a wide margin!

Maybe people who want ESPN to go away should be asking for CBS to go away instead!


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## lwilli201 (Dec 22, 2006)

Charlie Sheen needs all that money to pay his lawyers the big bucks to keep him out of jail.


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## Lee L (Aug 15, 2002)

I can't beleive that ESPN makes money on MNF at almost 2 billlion a year. Its amazing.


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## celticpride (Sep 6, 2006)

we all have to pay for charlie sheens hookers!


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## gphvid (Jun 19, 2007)

RAD said:


> Why limit the reason for cost increases to just sports?
> 
> Charlie Sheen is getting $1,250,000 PER episode for Two and a Half Men. Heck, even the kid that plays Jake on that show is getting $250,000 per episode. How about a movie star like Will Smith, he made $20,000,000+20% of the gross for the movie Hancock.
> 
> ...


The majority of those people on the credits of movies and TV shows are below the line and do not make alot of money. They are usually by the hour with a 8 or 10 hour minimum and under union contract. The above the line people who do make the money are the producers and the studios and sometimes the directors and writers, although they have contracts too.

The reason for the rate hikes continues to be outlets like ESPN who pay out these extremely high prices for NFL and the corporate exex who get millions just to sit (or avoid) their offices.


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## LarryFlowers (Sep 22, 2006)

Someday someone is going to say ENOUGH where it comes to ESPN. 

How many "connected" homes in the USA? 120 million? ESPN steals $4 minimum for each and every one of those homes every month, because ESPN contracts says if you carry their signal, every subscriber must get it. (*the 120M homes is a SWAG, try as I might I couldn't find a real number)

Nearly $6 BILLION in annual revenues from connected homes. Every subscriber MUST pay for ESPN.

Perhaps if ESPN is so sure of their value they should drop the requirement for every subscriber. Make themselves an optional package and charge $10/month.

If they are right, their revenue shoots through the roof. Of course they just might be wrong and if they are, millions of consumers who could care less about ESPN will be saving 10% of the avg monthly bill. 

Now people will say what about XYZ Network or GHI Network... I don't want to pay for them! 

There is something to that arguement, but there is a big difference. no other channel costs the kind of money that ESPN does.

Now add all the other costs for regional sports networks.

My contention is simply this. The costs associated with sports programming have reached a level that they should be treated like premium movie channels, put them in a package and let subscribers decide.

Now many here are aware of how I feel about sports. I have no use for them.

There was a time when that wasn't true.

I have watched professional sports in this country become so expensive that "Dad" can't take the kids to a baseball game anymore. Same for all the rest of the sports. It has become an entertainment only for the well to do and corporations.

Professional Sports has forgotten who made them what they are and they do not care.

College sports aren't much better.. ask any student on a college campus what the odds are that he can get a ticket to a football game. Nearly 30 years ago I was dating a young lady who, along with her parents were University of Georgia alumni. I was invited to go to the football games with them. 

I discovered that the very good tickets that they had for the games were the result of $30,000 in "donations" made to the "atheltic fund" over and above the costs of the tickets.

A certain number of tickets were set aside for the students. The students participated in a "lottery" for the chance to get a ticket. There were nowhere near enough tickets for the students.

So I don't care much for sports, for me they have turned into financial behemoths in place for the wealthy elite... the hell with the rest of us.


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## RAD (Aug 5, 2002)

"gphvid" said:


> The majority of those people on the credits of movies and TV shows are below the line and do not make alot of money. They are usually by the hour with a 8 or 10 hour minimum and under union contract. The above the line people who do make the money are the producers and the studios and sometimes the directors and writers, although they have contracts too.
> 
> The reason for the rate hikes continues to be outlets like ESPN who pay out these extremely high prices for NFL and the corporate exex who get millions just to sit (or avoid) their offices.


I Understand that most of those folks one the credits aren't the ones pulling down the millions, but when you combine all those folks with the big shots you're still talking a LOT of money. Yes ESPN costs a lot but IMHO it's also many of the other sources of programming that drive up the cost. Why not tell Charlie Sheen they won't pay $1.85M and if he walks fine, I'm sure there's plenty of others that would be happy to work for only $100K per episode to help reduce retrans costs.


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## LarryFlowers (Sep 22, 2006)

RAD said:


> I Understand that most of those folks one the credits aren't the ones pulling down the millions, but when you combine all those folks with the big shots you're still talking a LOT of money. Yes ESPN costs a lot but IMHO it's also many of the other sources of programming that drive up the cost. Why not tell Charlie Sheen they won't pay $1.85M and if he walks fine, I'm sure there's plenty of others that would be happy to work for only $100K per episode to help reduce retrans costs.


Charlie Sheen's salary has no effect on our programming costs. It does directly affect the cost of advertising during that half hour of programming somewhat, but the truth here is very complex. Sheen's show has more than enough episodes to qualify it as an "A" list syndication property. The show is literally worth hundreds of millions of dollars in syndication. Charlie's salary while ridiculous simply represents that his show is so popular and approaching 200 episodes its value in sindication is astronomical. If the actual numbers were available for us to look at, his salary is inconsequential.


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## sigma1914 (Sep 5, 2006)

ESPN & Disney deserve to get all that money since they were 2 of the top 3 networks of 2010.

Top rated cable networks of 2010:
USA 3.15 4%
Disney 2.57 +2%
ESPN 2.34 +2%
TNT 2.25 0
Fox News 2.05 7%
TBS 1.79 3%
Nick at Nite 1.72 1%
History 1.64 +34%
A&E 1.46 -1%
ABC Family 1.42 +4%

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2010-12-23-cableyear23_ST_N.htm


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

LarryFlowers said:


> Charlie Sheen's salary has no effect on our programming costs. It does directly affect the cost of advertising during that half hour of programming somewhat, but the truth here is very complex. Sheen's show has more than enough episodes to qualify it as an "A" list syndication property. The show is literally worth hundreds of millions of dollars in syndication. Charlie's salary while ridiculous simply represents that his show is so popular and approaching 200 episodes its value in sindication is astronomical. If the actual numbers were available for us to look at, his salary is inconsequential.


Sure it does...

Every time a CBS affiliate negotiates for retransmission rights and every time those episodes get sold into syndication to a cable/satellite channel that then counts that as part of their needed revenue the next year.

Everything affects everything.


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## Lord Vader (Sep 20, 2004)

ESPN would save itself even more money if it didn't have to constantly pay out all those sexual harassment lawsuits against its employees.

!rolling


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## LarryFlowers (Sep 22, 2006)

sigma1914 said:


> ESPN & Disney deserve to get all that money since they were 2 of the top 3 networks of 2010.
> 
> Top rated cable networks of 2010:
> USA 3.15 4%
> ...


OK, I am willing to pay Disney & ESPN exactly the same amount as I pay for the #1 network USA. I believe that is around $.40


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## sigma1914 (Sep 5, 2006)

LarryFlowers said:


> OK, I am willing to pay Disney & ESPN exactly the same amount as I pay for the #1 network USA. I believe that is around $.40


That al a carte argument doesn't add up. You won't pay $0.40 for a channel. Here's a reason I gave before:



> People who want a la carte use that chart to show how cheap channels should cost us. They'll say, "See...BBCA should only cost us $0.12." They fail to realize that a la carte wouldn't make a lot of stations any money. At $0.12/sub, Directv pays about $2.1 million & overall BBCA gets about $8.2 million from all providers. BBCA highest rated show ever had 1.7 million viewers & that's over all providers. So, if only 1.7 million will watch BBCA's highest show, then it's safe to assume 2 million will add it al a carte...and that's being generous. At $0.12/sub for 2 million people, that earns BBCA a whopping $240,000 from all providers combined. Bye-bye BBCA! For BBCA to earn the $8.2 million they get now, the price for little ol' BBCA would be about $4.10 per month. Now, imagine how much actual popular stations would cost...


http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?p=2669544#post2669544


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## gphvid (Jun 19, 2007)

LarryFlowers said:


> Charlie Sheen's salary has no effect on our programming costs. It does directly affect the cost of advertising during that half hour of programming somewhat, but the truth here is very complex. Sheen's show has more than enough episodes to qualify it as an "A" list syndication property. The show is literally worth hundreds of millions of dollars in syndication. Charlie's salary while ridiculous simply represents that his show is so popular and approaching 200 episodes its value in sindication is astronomical. If the actual numbers were available for us to look at, his salary is inconsequential.


It does when the networks pay a license fee for each episode to the studio that produces it. Up the star's fee, then the license fee goes up. Then the advertiser rates as well as the networks asking for much higher fees from DirecTV, DISH and all the others.


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## Kev (Jan 15, 2011)

They pay whatever the traffic will bear. The fact is that the NFL is watched by millions and millions of viewers every week and those viewers are willing to pay the prices for seeing it.


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## LarryFlowers (Sep 22, 2006)

sigma1914 said:


> That al a carte argument doesn't add up. You won't pay $0.40 for a channel. Here's a reason I gave before:
> 
> http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?p=2669544#post2669544


You are missing my point and I am not advocating ala carte. You said that ESPN and Disney deserved all that money because they were "2 of the top 3" networks in 2010.

And that makes them worth over 10 times as much as the number 1 network in 2010 how?


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## sigma1914 (Sep 5, 2006)

LarryFlowers said:


> You are missing my point and I am not advocating ala carte. You said that ESPN and Disney deserved all that money because they were "2 of the top 3" networks in 2010.
> 
> And that makes them worth over 10 times as much as the number 1 network in 2010 how?


USA deserves more than the $0.55, too. At least TNT gets $0.99 per sub.

(Prices from this chart - http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?p=2669036#post2669036 )


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