• Follow us on Twitter @buckeyeplanet and @bp_recruiting, like us on Facebook! Enjoy a post or article, recommend it to others! BP is only as strong as its community, and we only promote by word of mouth, so share away!
  • Consider registering! Fewer and higher quality ads, no emails you don't want, access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Even if you just want to lurk, there are a lot of good reasons to register!

No More Football on ABC

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Sort by date Sort by votes
Agreed, I was just adding to the info in the thread. Apparently the sunday espn night nfl commentators were pretty entertaining, so that's another potential loss (obviously not of the same magnitude). I haven't followed the NFL as closely since my skins aren't on TV much in the midwest (they have to stop impersonating the browns to remedy that, something they haven't done in a decade).
 
Upvote 0
Taosman said:
The Monday Night Football announcers have sucked, big time lately! No great loss there. ABC could have done a much better job, I think they lost interest in doing it! Will ESPN be better?
Click to expand...
Yes, because, if they have a crappy matchup, they can just start making shit up about whatever the hell they feel like.
 
Upvote 0
Thus Sprach BuckeyeFROMscUM
ESPiN will cover it instead, and apparently NBC will get Sunday Night games.
Click to expand...
Yep -- though I heard it may be NFL may be showing select Thursday Night games come 2006.
And eSPIN gets the Monday nighters in the same year, and NBC gets the Sunday Nighters

Here are a couple of things to think on for those with a longer term perspective...
NFL Channel is currently a select service, and because there is no live sports, cable /satellite operators may elect to not include NFL channel.

If NFL channel shows LIVE football games they have to be picked up by ALL cable networks.
If NFL channel is picked up by ALL cable / Digital TV (Directs or whatsoever) then it is a new, new era.

Could it be that NFL is going to use 2006 (+?) to get all the bugs worked out in terms of game coverage / distribution? Then in the years beyond 2007 more and more of those games roll off from eSPIn to NBC. I.e., All Sunday Night, later All Monday on NFL.

How soon then before it is more cost effective for NFL Channel to have the majority of the games on its own channels? NFL East, South, MidWest and so on? Hell, they could even channel split to have AFC specific and NFC specific sub-channels.

Before going "Nah, never happen" remember that there is a perfectly deployed business model of just this type that went on in Europe with their coverages of the soccer .. there the winner was Sky TV, and it was the big driver for dish sales in the UK. Others followed suit. What was once an on-air commercial revenue driven broadcast became a pay channel distribution, i.e. you had to have Sky Sport to see the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea or Manchester United.

There are so many cable / satellite channels now in operation that it dilutes the revenue available from advertisements that a Fox or ABC or eSPIN can throw at a major sport broadcast. The NFL prospectively will get lower and lower bids for their games, they cannot afford to let the product become diluted in such a manner. Yet, by careful narrow-casting to a pretty sizeable minority the NFL maintains its revenues at a level it has enjoyed over the years.
 
Upvote 0
I don't know if they said who the announcers would be, but ABC and ESPN are the same company. They may just keep Madden, and boot the Sunday night crew. Not really sure.

From a logistics standpoint this seems really good for Disney. They put MNF on ESPN, and get regualr TV ratings on ABC. I'm sure the 2 combined would be better than MNF on ABC and whatever crap ESPN shows after Monday Night Countdown.

sandgk said:
Thus Sprach BuckeyeFROMscUM Yep -- though I heard it may be NFL may be showing select Thursday Night games come 2006.
And eSPIN gets the Monday nighters in the same year, and NBC gets the Sunday Nighters

Here are a couple of things to think on for those with a longer term perspective...
NFL Channel is currently a select service, and because there is no live sports, cable /satellite operators may elect to not include NFL channel.

If NFL channel shows LIVE football games they have to be picked up by ALL cable networks.
If NFL channel is picked up by ALL cable / Digital TV (Directs or whatsoever) then it is a new, new era.

Could it be that NFL is going to use 2006 (+?) to get all the bugs worked out in terms of game coverage / distribution? Then in the years beyond 2007 more and more of those games roll off from eSPIn to NBC. I.e., All Sunday Night, later All Monday on NFL.

How soon then before it is more cost effective for NFL Channel to have the majority of the games on its own channels? NFL East, South, MidWest and so on? Hell, they could even channel split to have AFC specific and NFC specific sub-channels.

Before going "Nah, never happen" remember that there is a perfectly deployed business model of just this type that went on in Europe with their coverages of the soccer .. there the winner was Sky TV, and it was the big driver for dish sales in the UK. Others followed suit. What was once an on-air commercial revenue driven broadcast became a pay channel distribution, i.e. you had to have Sky Sport to see the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea or Manchester United.

There are so many cable / satellite channels now in operation that it dilutes the revenue available from advertisements that a Fox or ABC or eSPIN can throw at a major sport broadcast. The NFL prospectively will get lower and lower bids for their games, they cannot afford to let the product become diluted in such a manner. Yet, by careful narrow-casting to a pretty sizeable minority the NFL maintains its revenues at a level it has enjoyed over the years.
Click to expand...
I have heard this for a while sandgk. Many people speculated that the only reason for the NFL channel was to start a network that eventually would carry all the NFL games. Specialization is definately the wave of the future for TV.
 
Upvote 0
Here's the Yahoo article on it


'Monday Night Football' Moving to ESPN

Mon Apr 18, 9:50 PM ET Sports - AP


By DAVE GOLDBERG, AP Football Writer

NEW YORK - "Monday Night Football," a television institution that over 35 years has helped transform the NFL into a prime-time ratings draw, is leaving ABC and moving to ESPN beginning with the 2006 season.


The new broadcast deal also brings the NFL to NBC for the first time since 1997. The network gets Sunday night football — which the league now considers its marquee television showcase — and will employ a flexible scheduling model.


"In the current media environment, Sunday is now the better night for our prime-time broadcast package," commissioner Paul Tagliabue said Monday.


Moving "Monday Night Football" to ESPN, which currently broadcasts Sunday night games, keeps the brand under The Disney Company umbrella. Disney owns both ESPN and ABC.


After the coming season, ABC — which pioneered modern television sports in bringing pro football to prime time — will be the only major network not to carry the NFL. "Monday Night Football" has been a pillar of ABC since it began in 1970, when Howard Cosell anchored the show that now stands as the second-longest running prime time network series, trailing CBS's 60 Minutes by two years.


NBC will start its Sunday broadcasts with a pregame show at 7 p.m. eastern; games will begin at 8:15. The network plans to use a flexible scheduling model in the last seven weeks, allowing it to shift afternoon games to prime time to ensure more meaningful games are shown on national TV.


Monday night games will shift to the earlier start time of 8:40 p.m. eastern on ESPN.


"The earlier kickoff times for both packages, NBC's Sunday night programming devoted to the NFL and flexible scheduling for Sunday night are all positive changes," Tagliabue said.


ESPN, which has been broadcasting Sunday night games since 1998, will pay $1.1 billion a year over eight years for Monday night games, two sources familiar with the deals told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.


Under its current eight-year, $4.4 billion contract, ABC has paid an average of $550 million per year to broadcast "Monday Night Football" — exactly one-half of the annual average that ESPN has agreed to pay.


NBC will broadcast Sunday night football for $600 million a year over six years, according to the sources. That annual figure is the same price ESPN paid for Sunday night football over the course of its current eight-year deal. NBC will also get the Super Bowl in 2009 and 2012.


ESPN said it had been assured by the league that it would get high-quality games in keeping with the tradition of Monday night football.


"ESPN could have stayed on Sunday night," ESPN vice president Mark Shapiro said. "Unequivocally our task was to continue ABC's tradition of Monday Night Football. We've been assured we're getting the preferred schedule."


Added George Bodenheimer, president of ESPN and ABC Sports: "From the Disney perspective, it was a smart move for ABC by moving out of football and having ESPN move into Monday nights."


"Monday Night Football" had its highest-rated broadcast in 1985 with a 29.6, or a 46 share, for a game between the then-unbeaten Chicago Bears and Miami Dolphins.


"A great deal with the NFL is the best deal you can get in television," said NBC sports chairman Dick Ebersol, who said the network only began negotiating with the NFL last Friday after ABC, which had the option on the prime-time broadcasts until Oct. 31, relinquished it after talks with the league.


He said the network hasn't started working on finding anchors for the Sunday night broadcast. "We're celebrating for a day. Then I'm sure we'll get a lot of calls."





Last month, Tagliabue said during the NFL meetings in Hawaii that the Monday night move was a strong possibility. ABC, which has been losing money on the package despite high ratings, had been balking at the NFL's asking price.

NBC has been struggling in prime-time this season, and even risks an unprecedented fall into fourth place in the ratings. ABC's newfound ratings strength with "Desperate Housewives" on Sunday nights has been particularly damaging. NBC says it will devote its entire Sunday night prime-time lineup to the NFL.

CBS and Fox already have agreed to pay a total of $8 billion over six years for the rights to Sunday afternoon games.

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.

The NFL will continue to show all cable games on free, over-the air television in home markets. That means that local stations will carry ESPN's Monday night games in the cities of the teams involved.
Click to expand...
 
Upvote 0
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top