League's TV Strategy Confusing 

April 20, 2008
Florida Times-Union (FL) 
Editorial
 
The NFL Network appears to be the tail that wags the dog.

For example, one of the Jaguars' three prime-time games next season will be Thursday, Dec. 18, against the Indianapolis Colts. If the two teams are still fighting it out for the AFC South title, this could be a critical matchup.

However, it won't have a real prime-time audience because the game will be shown on the NFL Network, which isn't on basic cable on most systems and doesn't attract an ESPN-type audience, much less the number of viewers the networks do. The game will be shown on local television in Jacksonville and Indianapolis, but the majority of fans in the rest of the country won't see it.

The NFL is trying to put attractive games on its network to try to convince cable companies to put it on basic packages, but that strategy already has failed. Cable companies didn't cave in last year when the New England Patriots-New York Giants regular-season finale was shown on NFL Network. Instead of depriving most of the nation's fans a chance to see the Patriots go for a perfect regular season, the NFL folded like a cheap suit and put the game on network TV.

You might think a new strategy was in order. But the league and NFL Network chief executive officer Steve Bornstein wildly overestimated the leverage they would have with cable companies.

The NFL Network charges 70 cents per customer, and because the majority of fans aren't clamoring for the channel, cable companies are winning with the argument that subscribers who aren't football followers shouldn't have to pay.

Patriots owner Bob Kraft told the Philadelphia Daily News that the NFL Network had hoped to be in 75 million to 80 million homes by now, but it is in only 31 million. And the Dish Network recently dropped the network from its "America's Top 100" package to its "American Top 200 package," costing the league 4 million homes.

So the NFL Network keeps filing lawsuits with the FCC, claiming cable companies are discriminating against it because they put the channels they own on basic cable. The lawsuit strategy isn't working, and if it doesn't in the future, the NFL doesn't seem to have a backup.

Another victim is NFL Films, which once was the cornerstone of promoting the league but now is being treated like a stepchild.

NFL Films recently laid off 21 people, and Bornstein has rejected some of its proposed productions.

It turns out those historical features that the company does so well aren't popular with Bornstein.

"The shots that people associate with Films - those long beautiful, super slow-mo shots of a spiraling football - the NFL Network people hate that," one league source told the Philadelphia Daily News. "It's too slow for them."

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