# Sunday & Monday Night Football Changes



## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

According to ABC News, ESPN will take over Monday Night Football from ABC in an eight year deal beginning in 2006.

No further details are available.


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## cclement (Mar 22, 2004)

35 years of ABC's MNF will come to an end, starting in 2006, MNF will be moved to ESPN and Sunday Night Football will be moved to NBC.

More can be read at espn.com
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2040130


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## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

From HoustonChronicle.com:

*Monday Night Football moving to ESPN in 2006*

Monday Night Football will move to ESPN from ABC beginning with the 2006 season for the blockbuster sum of $1.1 billion per year for eight years, and NBC will return to the NFL with a six-year deal to telecast Sunday night games for an estimated $600 million per year, industry sources said Monday.

FULL ARTICLE HERE


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## homeskillet (Feb 3, 2004)

Notice in the article that the NFL might consider a Thursday/Saturday package that could air on THE NFL NETWORK..... DISH would really need to add that channel then.

Notice those comments come from the AP story posted on Yahoo News towards the bottom.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm.../20050418/ap_on_sp_fo_ne/fbn_nfl_monday_night

_The NFL is still considering an eight game late-season package of Thursday and Saturday night games on cable and satellite. Tagliabue has said the NFL's own new network could show some or all of those games. _


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## News Junky (Mar 16, 2005)

What is America coming to?


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## dcdivenut (Apr 15, 2005)

Same thing it has been for a while...

Money talks....

The fact is that ABC had been losing money on MNF for years. ESPN is making money hand over fist and since they get subscriber fees they can afford it vs. ABC. NBC also gets Sunday night and they get flexible scheduling so they don;t get dog games at the end of the season. THat should be interesting to see how hat works out. 

But in the end, the NFL gets what it wants which is more money, and continues its move to direct as much of its prgramming as possible to the NFL Network which may start carrying Thursday night games.


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## durl (Mar 27, 2003)

Yep. ABC couldn't afford to keep taking the losses. ESPN will raise their rates (and therefore our satellite bills) as soon as they can. Networks really are at a disadvantage since they don't have the subscriber fees to fall back on. I was perfectly happy with MNF on ABC, but ESPN negotiated the deal and the consumers are the ones who foot the bill, even though we didn't ask for ESPN to pay a billion dollars for the rights.


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## Laverne (Feb 17, 2005)

Any idea if this means the games will (eventually?) be broadcast in WS on ESPN-HD, sans the gray ESPN bars? :shrug:


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## SamC (Jan 20, 2003)

Both the ESPN MNF, and the NBC SNF will be in HD. ESPN will also run MNF on its Spanish channel.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

The thing that is most puzzling to me is... Disney owns both ABC and ESPN... so from that standpoint, does it really matter whether ESPN or ABC "wins" the bidding? It still comes from Disney money anyway...

Last I had heard, ESPN still pulls in less viewers than ABC on average... so it seems to me that Disney as the parent company would want to show the program on the station that gets the most viewers. As it stands now, ABC will have to come up with a couple of hours of prime time programming to air on Mondays now that it didn't have to air before... and presumably the football audience will follow the games to ESPN... so one could argue that moving Monday night games to ESPN could end up costing ABC money if they can't make money on whatever they air in its place!

On a related note... I assume that the MNF crew will stay with the move to ESPN, meaning that the ESPN crew that used to do the Sunday night games will be out of work unless NBC picks up some of them?


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## durl (Mar 27, 2003)

ABC was already losing money by airing MNF so I'd guess that the accountants were happy to see it go regardless of what they get to replace it. ESPN has the benefit of charging more for their network, meaning they can pay the NFL more for the rights. The NFL gets their money, ESPN gets a high-profile game, and the customers pay the bill.


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## dishking (Jun 20, 2004)

First..I don't know what the post about HD means, since both MNF and ESPN NFL games on Sunday have been in HD for a while.

Second, remember ESPN and ABC Sports are in the same Disney family. If ESPN can make MNF more profitable due to the subscriber base, and ABC manages to program Monday nights successfully for the non-sports fans, then this is a win-win for the company. This seems like a huge change historically, but for Disney, it's just an accounting switch.


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## lifterguy (Dec 22, 2003)

The ESPN deal for Monday night football really highlights the need for new regulations forcing multi-channel providers like Disney to "unbundle" their channels and allow cable and satellite distributors to make their own decisions about how they want to package and sell channels. ABC was losing money on the Monday games, and ESPN will be paying even more for the package. But analysts say the reason ESPN can afford to do that is because it get income from both advertising and cable & satellite TV subscribers. Unfortunately ESPN has also become the most expensive channel in the typical satellite/cable package, and almost every subscriber pays for it because Disney refuses to allow it to be moved out of basic packages of channels. Disney enforces this rule with threats of pulling this or other popular channels from any distributor that dares to defy them. Public anger at rising cable and satellite bills should be directed at content providers like Disney (which owns ESPN and ABC) who bid up the price for programming, while expecting all subscribers (not just those who watch ESPN) to foot the bill.


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## Laverne (Feb 17, 2005)

dishking said:


> First..I don't know what the post about HD means, since both MNF and ESPN NFL games on Sunday have been in HD for a while....


Not all of us have had ESPN "for a while".  And our local ABC will not go HD until forced to (as well as CBS and FOX) so I have trained myself not to notice the "in HD where available" notes at the bottom. I, for one, will be very excited to watch MNF in WS. :grin:

(Someone ought to combine the two threads...)


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## tkrandall (Oct 3, 2003)

So, should I assume another rate increase will come from soon from DTV to pay for ESPN's ever escalating revenue demands from sattelite and cable providers?


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## ayalbaram (Aug 4, 2003)

Does this mean ESPN will get the superbowl on cable???


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## james2006 (Oct 11, 2004)

ESPN will not get the superbowl...NBC will have one SB in the next 6 years (according to the current deal)


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

dishking said:


> Second, remember ESPN and ABC Sports are in the same Disney family. If ESPN can make MNF more profitable due to the subscriber base, and ABC manages to program Monday nights successfully for the non-sports fans, then this is a win-win for the company. This seems like a huge change historically, but for Disney, it's just an accounting switch.


That's the part that confuses me the most... Since either way (ABC or ESPN) Disney is paying for it... I don't see why it matters where they air the MNF... the same company pays for it, so I would think they would want to air it where they have the biggest audience, so they can in turn charge the most for commercials.

Since whatever ESPN usually aired on Monday nights against ABC would lose to MNF... all I see is the reverse of this with ESPN now getting the viewers, but potentially less than on ABC since not everyone has cable/satellite... and then whatever ABC airs is likely to fail.

Think about it... ABC can't really make a mega-advertising venture into Monday night against its sister ESPN MNF... Disney isn't that inept, yet...

The move itself doesn't bother me because I have ESPN of course... but I feel for those who don't... I just can't make sense of the business side of things to see where Disney gains... Bottom line, they lose Sunday night games... paying more for Monday night which they already were losing money on... and are showing the games on the less-viewed ESPN channel... seems like a good way to lose more money to me!


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## SamC (Jan 20, 2003)

NONE of the networks can make money from their NFL deals. All do it to draw attention to the network's other programming.

The difference between ESPN and ABC is that ABC has ONE revenue source. Ad sales. ESPN has two. Ads sales and your monthly DBS fees. 

ESPN thus can pay more than ABC can for the same programming.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

SamC said:


> NONE of the networks can make money from their NFL deals. All do it to draw attention to the network's other programming.
> 
> The difference between ESPN and ABC is that ABC has ONE revenue source. Ad sales. ESPN has two. Ads sales and your monthly DBS fees.
> 
> ESPN thus can pay more than ABC can for the same programming.


To be technically accurate... Both ESPN and ABC have one source of revenue... Disney!

Agreed, however, that most networks aren't raking it in... and use the NFL games to advertise their other programming... which makes the move to ESPN more confusing. If you already have ESPN in order to watch the game, then you know what's on... and are paying for it whether you watch or not... If you don't have ESPN, then you won't see the game or the promos... Whereas ABC has more potential to be watched, and to be "flipped by" from a casual viewer who has nothing but a TV and rabbit-ears.

It's one thing when ESPN had games in addition to ABC... but when it is instead of.. and now ABC has to go spend money to create a couple of new prime-time TV hours to air on Monday and compete with themselves for viewers... just doesn't make any business sense to me.


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## jrb531 (May 29, 2004)

lifterguy said:


> The ESPN deal for Monday night football really highlights the need for new regulations forcing multi-channel providers like Disney to "unbundle" their channels and allow cable and satellite distributors to make their own decisions about how they want to package and sell channels. ABC was losing money on the Monday games, and ESPN will be paying even more for the package. But analysts say the reason ESPN can afford to do that is because it get income from both advertising and cable & satellite TV subscribers. Unfortunately ESPN has also become the most expensive channel in the typical satellite/cable package, and almost every subscriber pays for it because Disney refuses to allow it to be moved out of basic packages of channels. Disney enforces this rule with threats of pulling this or other popular channels from any distributor that dares to defy them. Public anger at rising cable and satellite bills should be directed at content providers like Disney (which owns ESPN and ABC) who bid up the price for programming, while expecting all subscribers (not just those who watch ESPN) to foot the bill.


If this allows us the choice of dropping ESPN then I'm all for it!

I wonder how much ESPN really costs us and how much the non-sports fans bills would go down if we were able to drop ESPN.

-JB


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## Msguy (May 23, 2003)

I don't like the idea of the NFL having games on NBC and ABC on Sunday nights. NFL football is supposed to be primarily played on Sunday Afternoons. It is a time when most families are together for Sunday Dinner or whatever and usually families are together all day during the afternoons on Sundays. If you start having 2 games competing against one another for Sunday Night games. Fans may not get to see there game if they are driving home from grandma's house after Sunday Dinner. I am not in favor of this New NFL Deal At All. Keep NFL games on Sunday Afternoons and keep things like they are :nono2:


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## SamC (Jan 20, 2003)

Umm, ESPN has had Sunday night NFL games for almost 20 years.


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## cdru (Dec 4, 2003)

What I don't understand is why MNF would move to cable only. I know that most football fans probably have ESPN, so it's somewhat a non-issue, but still. MNF _IS_ football, I would think you would want to broadest audience possible. I guess we'll see how things work out this fall with ratings.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

For the confused folks...

Today: Monday Night football on ABC, Sunday night football on ESPN

In 2006: Monday Night football on ESPN, Sunday night football on NBC

The only thing that has changed is the networks carrying the programs... still one game on each night.

I haven't entirely understood the decision myself... It was one thing when ESPN and ABC were separate entities... but now being owned by the same parent corporation, it seems like Disney would want to air the game on the channel (ABC or ESPN) where it can get the most viewers... and since there are lots of OTA-only people, it seems like ABC is a more logical choice.

The ONLY thing I could see swaying their choice is IF they think they have a blockbuster ABC show they could put on Monday nights... but then they would be competing against ESPN (essentially fighting themselves for ratings)... so I don't get what is driving their decision.


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## SamC (Jan 20, 2003)

Once again, the NFL is NOT about viewers. Everybody in America could watch and the broadcasters still would lose money. Each pays the NFL FAR FAR FAR more than it can ever hope to recoup from ad revenues. 

ESPN will lose less money because you and I pay for ESPN, and do not really pay for ABC in the same manner.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

SamC said:


> Once again, the NFL is NOT about viewers. Everybody in America could watch and the broadcasters still would lose money. Each pays the NFL FAR FAR FAR more than it can ever hope to recoup from ad revenues.
> 
> ESPN will lose less money because you and I pay for ESPN, and do not really pay for ABC in the same manner.


But Disney owns both ABC and ESPN... so at the end of the day one channel's profits can make up for the other one's losses... so again, it makes sense to put the games on the channel which potentially has the most viewers, because the more viewers watch MNF the more they can charge for the advertisements.

It simply doesn't make sense for Disney to put the game on a channel with lower viewership. You can't ignore the fact that the same company owns both ESPN and ABC for these scenarios.


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## SamC (Jan 20, 2003)

One, I very much doubt that there is anybody that is the least bit interested in sports who does not have cable/DBS. While ESPN has a slightly lower potential audience than ABC, the "extra" viewers are basicly irrelevant, because they wouldn't watch the NFL anyway. 

Two, you are quite correct that both networks' profits go into the same pot. That is why it makes sense to have all of the compelling content on ESPN, which people pay for. The more good programs on ESPN, the more you and I pay for it. The more good programs on ABC, the more good programs on ABC.


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## Laverne (Feb 17, 2005)

SamC said:


> One, I very much doubt that there is anybody that is the least bit interested in sports who does not have cable/DBS. While ESPN has a slightly lower potential audience than ABC, the "extra" viewers are basicly irrelevant, because they wouldn't watch the NFL anyway....


Boy, are you way off. There are plenty of people whose only joy in sports-watching life is getting to watch MNF. I know; I used to be one of those people. It's called "poor", "low-income", "strapped", "hard-up". I'm sure ALL those "extra" viewers would very much resent you calling them "irrelevent". Whether you believe it or not, cable/DBS is a _luxury_.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

SamC said:


> One, I very much doubt that there is anybody that is the least bit interested in sports who does not have cable/DBS. While ESPN has a slightly lower potential audience than ABC, the "extra" viewers are basicly irrelevant, because they wouldn't watch the NFL anyway.


There are lots of folks who can't get cable even if they want to... and some folks who still have difficulty getting a good satellite signal... then, as another person just mentioned, lots of folks for whom cable/satellite is simply a luxury they can't afford so they watch the free OTA channels only.

Intentionally cutting off access for a large potential audience never makes much sense to me, but I know businesses do it all the time.



SamC said:


> Two, you are quite correct that both networks' profits go into the same pot. That is why it makes sense to have all of the compelling content on ESPN, which people pay for. The more good programs on ESPN, the more you and I pay for it. The more good programs on ABC, the more good programs on ABC.


You'd think, though, IF Disney was thinking as you suggest here... that they would have bid to keep the Sunday night broadcasts too... and had both Sunday & Monday night games on ESPN, instead of letting NBC have the Sunday night games.

I find it ironic, in this discussion... how big the drive from satellite is to have all the local markets covered, and how many people post in these forums saying that having local channels on satellite is a BIG factor in determining their choice of provider, and similarly people are watching both Dish & DirectTv to see how HD locals get carried and many people threaten to jump ship to the first company who puts their locals on satellite in HD.

BUT, if that were true... and since the satellite and cable companies do have to pay networks/local channels rebroadcast rights... then ABC, for instance, would need a more attractive lineup to keep their retransmission prices high too.

IF it were all about the money they can charge to the satellite/cable carrier... having MNF makes ABC a more attractive network to have doesn't it? Now what would be the compelling must-have TV that ABC would use to get its next price increase?


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