Will the NFL ever offer ‘Sunday Ticket’ on a single-team basis? Sports Media Mailbag (Part 2!)

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Welcome to the 42nd Media Mailbag for The Athletic. Thanks for sending in your questions via the website and app. There were nearly 100 questions, so this was a two-parter. Part 1 ran Tuesday.

As a Jets fan who lives in Pennsylvania, the only way to watch all Jets games is to purchase a very expensive full NFL TV package. While I purchase single-team packages to watch the Mets, Knicks and Rangers for a reasonable annual fee, I skip watching NFL football on Sunday afternoons in the fall. Any chance the NFL will ever implement a single-team option that provides all the games for one team at a fair price?

Great question. I personally don’t think there’s any chance the NFL would do that because the scarcity of the product is what drives the billions paid by the media rights holders. But I wanted to get someone who has worked at the networks for insight, so I forwarded your question to Patrick Crakes, a former Fox Sports senior vice president who now works as a media consultant. This is a long answer so stay with it.

“I understand this sentiment, but I just don’t see a route to single NFL team out-of-market season passes,” Crakes said. “The core issue here is how game inventory is valued for different leagues. For the NBA, NHL and MLB team season passes, the game inventory is monetized regionally with telecast partners across six-month-long regular seasons. In contrast, 100 percent of the 272 NFL’s regular season games are monetized nationally to include the majority of games that air during Sunday daytime and are regionalized across two windows (1:00 pm and 4:25 p.m. ET). This works out to only 17 regular season games for each team across only 18 weeks.

“This scarcity in game inventory combined with the extreme viewing demand for the NFL means every single regular season game has national strategically significant economic value for the most important media distribution platforms such as broadcast TV networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC), top pay-TV channels (ESPN) and top streaming platforms (Amazon Prime Video, Google, Paramount+, Peacock and Netflix). These are the ones that can afford to pay $13.3B overall in 2024 alone for America’s by far most popular and valuable media property. These mega-strategic NFL telecast partners need some type of exclusivity for their NFL investments.

“When you consider the NFL’s requirement that there will always be a free over the air (OTA) broadcast signal for each game regardless of its national telecast partner, you can see how from the NFL’s perspective they believe they’re fully serving local and national fans while also serving out of market ultra fans,” Crakes continued. “They believe the NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTubeTV remains the best way for the most passionate of NFL viewers to gain access to as many games on Sunday afternoons as possible while maximizing per game economics.

“If your anchor is the per-game pricing for a NBA, NHL or MLB regular-season local package then any such hypothetical NFL package is going to look astronomical by comparison. For example, MLB’s most expensive team season local passes are around $120 annually or about 75 cents per game over 162 games. Taking the total paid by NFL telecasters ($13.3B) last year and dividing it by the total number of NFL regular season games (272), you get an individual NFL regular season game value of $48M. That figure alone should tell you that you’re going to pay a significant premium for a NFL team season pass because the per-game value of your local team is derived via a national market and not local/regional one. Unfortunately, there’s probably no route to single NFL team passes in the near future.”

Build your all-time dream broadcast booths for NBA and NFL, along with a studio show for NFL. – Brandon S.

NBA: Ian Eagle, Charles Barkley and Jeff Van Gundy in the booth. Craig Sager on the sideline.

NFL: Al Michaels, John Madden and Troy Aikman in the booth. Pam Oliver on the sideline.

NFL studio show: Bob Costas, Howard Cosell, Peyton Manning, Amy Trask and Will McDonough.

Are the 2030 US broadcast rights for the men’s football (soccer) World Cup a must have for Fox? — Brian D.

One of the most interesting sports rights acquisitions for me over the last 10 months was when Netflix secured the exclusive broadcast rights in the United States for the 2027 and 2031 editions of the Women’s World Cup. The deal marked the first time the Women’s World Cup will be broadcast on a streaming service. That feels very significant to me as we approach the rights for the 2030 men’s World Cup. Games will be played in six countries: Co-hosts Spain, Portugal and Morocco as well as Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina. It’s going to be massively expensive for a U.S. media rights holder if they want to staff it properly. The 2030 tournament will also have more inventory if the 64-team proposal goes through. I have no doubt Fox would want the property, but the question is the price. I don’t think it’s a must-have given the resources needed.

I also would not be surprised if Netflix goes all-in. The one World Cup Fox always wanted is what they have — the 2026 men’s World Cup. (BTW: I’d be fine with someone else doing the World Cup in the U.S. It could use a fresh set of eyes.)

The prices of broadcast rights keeps going up. How much of that is due to inflation versus the actual value increase? — Martin D.

You’d have to take it on a sport-by-sport basis for the best analysis, but let’s look at the NBA/WNBA increases on its media deal. The new agreement — $77 billion over 11 years — is up more than 150 percent over the previous contract based on annual value. Whether these deals turn out to be good business for the media rights holders, we will see. But value is based on what someone is willing to pay versus global inflation trends.

“Get off of my lawn” question here. The Stanley Cup playoffs just ended. Regardless of the great matchup in the Final, fan fatigue is a real thing, especially as the weather is warmer, and there is more to do aside from watching TV. Do the broadcast partners of the NHL care about the total length of the season and playoffs being simply too long, or do they just view it as “inventory” where more is better? — John M.

The recent news that the NHL and NHL Players’ Association agreed to a four-year extension of the Collective Bargaining Agreement answers the question, given the deal increases the NHL regular season to 84 games per team. The NHL wants as much game inventory as possible because that has driven the media rights deals with ESPN/Turner Sports in the U.S. and Rogers in Canada.

I do think viewer fatigue is a real thing, but there’s no scenario I see where the postseason gets shortened. I would love to see the playoff format become either “1 versus 16” league-wide or “1 versus 8” in the conferences.

I feel like when I turn to sports TV lately it’s a lot of one big opinion versus another and tends to devolve from there. What’s it going to take to get back to classic ESPN-style fun highlights and funny commentary nightly? Am I looking in the wrong places? — Matt B.

The majority of what airs at night is live-game inventory, and that’s not going to feature debate television. But opinion is very cheap to produce — you already own the studio/building so your biggest cost is talent. It’s also the easiest television to do. Sports isn’t alone in this. Look at what CNN’s primetime lineup has become. Certainly pre- and post-game shows focus on opinions, but that’s usually connected to the game. The days of SportsCenter being unique have long been over.  Highlights are accessible everywhere. We live in a different world. My friendly advice is to find sports podcasts that offer what you are looking for, and there are plenty of good ones out there.

Can we call on all sports announcers to cease describing the next play, game, golf shot etc… with words such as huge, important, crucial, critical. I understand they are trying to add a level of excitement, but when it is said a thousand times during a broadcast it becomes beyond insufferable. — Michael H.

I can see that this is a critical and important question for you. I imagine if you are listening for those specific words, you will hear them a lot. But never forget, sports broadcasters are ALWAYS in the business of selling the product. One of the objectives is to keep you watching.

Do the new WNBA broadcast media contracts come with professional announcer teams rather than home-team announcers? A very high percentage are insufferable. Right now it seems only ESPN has real announcers. Rebecca Lobo and Ryan Ruocco do a really good, objective job. I’ve also heard Debbie Antonelli on ION. She’s got credibility from years in the game and does pretty well too. Don’t know if she’s a home-teamer or not. —J.M.

When you watch the WNBA on ION or NBA TV, you are getting the local broadcast. When you watch ESPN/ABC, you are getting the national broadcasters such as Lobo, Ruocco, LaChina Robinson, etc… I watch a lot of WNBA League Pass, and there are a lot of homer broadcasts out there. I agree with you. Antonelli calls the Fever games locally, and she and Pat Boyle are excellent. I also like the Dallas broadcast of Ron Thulin, Nancy Lieberman and Fran Harris.

People often say leagues are rooting for big market teams to help TV ratings. Does that really affect the leagues much? Are playoff TV contracts dependent on the teams that are playing? — Zachary

What leagues and networks root for above all is length in a series. You just saw a real-time example. Game 7 of the NBA Finals averaged 16.6 million viewers. It bailed out a series that was trending brutally low on viewership. Media market size definitely matters, but where a game airs matters more (broadcast versus cable, for example). The broadcast contracts are fixed over years. The teams that play in the postseason has nothing to do with the contracts.

Can the new baseball broadcast contract incorporate local TV announcers in the postseason? Use the same video feed, change the ad mix if using a separate channel or streaming service, but give TV viewers the option to hear their local broadcast TV team in the postseason. Gotta be a way to employ available technology and think of this as a value-add rather than a dilution of the potential audience. — Paul S.

Not going to happen. The networks with postseason rights are paying a premium for those rights. If you have the local broadcast in play, the business for the national networks is impacted significantly because you dilute the media markets of the teams in the series.

What will be the state of successful local regional sports networks in five years? Is there any way AM radio can survive? Is basketball headed to be as niche as hockey now? — Chris K.

Five years is a lifetime in sports media. Clearly, leagues such as MLB and the NBA would love to centralize the RSNs but I don’t see successful regional networks forgoing that business for the better of the league. An easy prediction is teams will continue to develop their direct-to-consumer streaming business. AM radio is obviously challenged, but pay attention to this legislation. The NBA just signed a mega-media rights deal with three major players. It’s not a niche sport unless you define niche as “everything that’s not the NFL.”

(Photo: Ethan Miller / Getty Images)

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