NBCU's roughly $950M EPL media-rights deal that will last through '22 "is starting to look like a rare commodity in the hot market for sports rights: a bargain," according to Matthew Futterman of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. NBC Sports Group Chair Mark Lazarus in August had predicted that the company "wouldn’t make money on the transaction," but he "already is hedging those comments." He said in a recent interview, "We won’t make money at the beginning." Futterman notes EPL matches "are just about the only major sports property in the U.S. showing any significant long-term growth in a splintering media environment." Matches this season "are averaging 563,000 viewers each across all channels," a 19% year-over-year increase. The average EPL audience has risen 150% "compared with three years ago when the games were on Fox and ESPN." In addition, fans "have streamed 139 million live minutes of NBC Sports digital coverage this season, which began in August, 44% more than the same period last year." The EPL audience "is about 38 years old on average, among the youngest in major televised sports and a demographic advertisers covet." Sports media experts said that they "are more bullish about the future of the Premier League in the U.S. than they are about any other league, with the exception of the long-dominant NFL." NBC sees the chance to use EPL matches "to lead into the rest of NBC’s weekend sports coverage and, like the Olympics, believes it can help secure increases in carriage fees pay TV distributors pay for its channels" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 10/29).
