U.S. TV subscribers pay on average "about $100 a year for sports programming -- no matter how many games they watch" -- and the NFL's recent extensions with its broadcast partners "most likely means the average cable bill will rise again soon," according to a front-page piece by Stelter & Chozick of the N.Y. TIMES. Those "spiraling costs are fraying the formerly tight bonds between the creators and distributors of television." Cable channels like ESPN that carry games are "charging cable and satellite operators more money, and broadcast networks are now doing the same, demanding cash for their broadcast signals and using sports as leverage." And higher fees are "raising concerns across the industry that cable bills may be reaching the breaking point for some consumers who are short of money." Research firm SNL Kagan found that ESPN is "far costlier than any other channel, earning about $4.69 a month for each cable and satellite household in the United States." Next year the firm "expects ESPN to cross the $5 a month threshold for the first time." The next highest cable net is TNT, at $1.16 this year. When combined with "siblings like ESPN2 and ESPN Classic, the ESPN networks take in about $6.50 per subscriber each month." Other sports channels like FSN, NFL Network and Versus "account for at least an additional $1.50 or so." Distributors like Dish Network are "talking to channel owners about creating virtual cable providers that would stream channels over the Internet instead of traditional cables." That would "break up the bundle of channels that subscribers have grudgingly accepted for years and allow subscribers who don’t like sports to avoid paying for them" (N.Y. TIMES, 12/16).
WINS ALL AROUND: SI.com's Richard Deitsch wrote with the new NFL TV deals, "everybody wins." The new deals "commence with the 2014 season, and given the popularity of the league -- game broadcasts accounted for 23 of the 25 most-watched shows on television this fall -- the networks were more than happy to part with the coin." CBS Sports Chair Sean McManus said, "Starting in early September through the second week in February, in many ways, the NFL is the dominant programming on TV. To try to live without it as a sports division or a network was something none of us wanted to anticipate" (SI.com, 12/15).
