Review by Natalie Heintz in KIN 332 (Section 1)
This article focuses on the concern
about the amount of money that ESPN is spending on renewing their contract with
Monday Night Football. The deal is $15.2
Billion dollars over the next eight years.
That is nearly 2 billion dollars per year. Critics went public with the concern that
consumers would be the ones paying for the deal through higher cable fees. Sean Bratches, ESPN’s executive vice
president of sales and marketing, expressed the fact that they were looking to
get the money for the deal through increases in their affiliate fees. Despite the fact that these numbers seem crazy,
ESPN is benefitting from the deal. After
interviews with executives from three of the biggest distributors, they said
they were expecting these numbers and have said it is not of huge concern. ESPN is going to get much more TV, broadband,
and mobile content as a result of the deal.
They are going to roll out 500 new hours of NFL related programs. This will be beneficial because those are among
the highest rated programs on television.
This
is a great marketing move for the ESPN brand and it’s family of networks. In 2010, seventeen NFL games airing on ESPN
made the top twenty most watched shows.
This goes to show that the NFL brand is important to advertisers because
of its large and loyal fan base. More specifically, ‘Monday Night Football’ has
become an event. It is the only NFL game playing that day, so more viewers will
be watching it. The NFL is one of the
most powerful brands in America that advertisers want to be affiliated
with. Also it is a brand that will
continue to increase its popularity, which is proven through fantasy football. All of this goes to show that this deal is a
smart marketing move for ESPN and will be very profitable.
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