NFL upfront sales for the '17-18 season have been "softer than sellers originally had anticipated," and the "volume of money that's been held back suggests that the league's media partners may be in for a white-knuckle fall scatter market," according to Anthony Crupi of AD AGE. A number of factors have "conspired to cast a bit of a pall over this year's NFL market, which some insiders say is the softest since the Great Recession" of '08. For example, a number of "marquee clients have slashed their pro football spend, while a few load-bearing categories aren't committing anywhere near as many dollars to the NFL as they did a year ago." One TV buyer said, "It is a much softer market in terms of the rate of change, but it's like we're talking about two entirely different sports. So yeah, the year-to-year (pricing) increases in NFL games are more modest than in years past, but when you look at what's going on with the entertainment stuff in prime, there are worse problems you could have as a network. You could have no football." Crupi noted that same buyer "estimated that the average price increase for ad time in this fall's NFL broadcasts is between 2% and 4%, although at least one network is pricing slightly above that range." The same TV buyer said, "Fox [has] the Cowboys in six of their eight national windows which, as you can imagine, has worked in their favor." The "consensus among insiders is that Fox is getting ad rates as much as 6% higher than last season." Automotive has "scaled back its spend in the midst of a five-month sales slide," while movies are "also putting fewer dollars into football" (ADAGE.com, 6/30).
