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For its $1.1 billion-per-year investment in the Monday Night Football package, ESPN might have gotten itself in position to help the NFL turn around the league-owned network.
According to the Wall Street Journal, ESPN and the NFL are in talks to form a partnership with NFLN.
“High-level” talks have occurred of late. Beyond that, we’re not aware of any of the details.
Not because they’re not in the WSJ story, but because we refuse to pay for an online subscription to the Wall Street Journal in order to find out.
Stay tuned. Eventually, there will be a report from a media outlet which realizes that the “free content plus ads” model is the only way to make money on a consistent basis via the Internet.
UPDATE: The whole story can be read right here.
June 20th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Just Great, now NFLN will become a biased shit station like BSPN…
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 5 rating(s)
June 20th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
I used to like the NFLN, it’s crap now. I have comcast so I have to freakin pay hard earned money to watch The Football Follies from 1988. There is no programming anymore, maybe someone from ESPN has a clue and can straighten shit out over there.
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Rating: 2 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
June 20th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Here’s an idea for the NFL and the NFLN. Adopt an idea similar to that of MLB.TV.
The NFL Network could then not only be that station half of football fans get, but an actual network on the internet with sunday ticket like features.
I’d pay X amount of dollars per month to get games every sunday on my PC, wouldn’t everyone else?
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
June 20th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
marader76 is absolutely right about espn,it’s
nothing but a garbage outlet geared to the lowest
and worst in our society.
it amazes me when people can sit and watch reruns
of poker games.thinking and breathing are conflicting
choices for this group.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 6 rating(s)
June 20th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Senator Arlen Comcast is convening members of the Senate in the hope to launch a Mitchell investigation to look into possible anti-trust violations(in reality to keep his biggest contributor going from getting screwed)by the possible merger. He would like to meet with Rich Eisen ASAP to find out what he knows.He would also like to meet with Mike Golic.He was quoted as being a big Golic fan from his Eagle days with the iggles and added that everyone knows Greenberg knows nothing.Anyway,hes a Jets fan what could he know.
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Rating: 2.4 / 5 with 5 rating(s)
June 20th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
NFLN got rid of a lot of its programming. That programming wasn’t the best, but it was a lot better than the stuff they have on now. Now they are going to bring on ESPN to learn how to ruin the REST of their programming? NFLN always did one thing pretty well, and that is handling news events concerning the NFL. This is one of the things that ESPN does extremely POORLY. ESPN is to BFL news like Fox is to normal news. They take events and portray them through bias and propaganda. They load up with single minded “analysts” with agendas, and crowd out anyone with a differing opinion. Is THIS what NFLN wants to learn how to do?
There is so little quality NFL related programming on the air. Why is that? Could it possibly be because the people they have reporting are mostly ex-players, who have large biases and very little knowledge in the area of objectivity? Let the people who went to broadcast school do the broadcasting, PLEASE. Let the ex-players do their guest spots. How can anyone ever expect an ex-player to give a thoughtful, unbiased report? There are very few that can. Not a knock against them, it is expected.
Tip to NFLN: Stay away from ESPN as a model for ANYTHING except what NOT to do. Start hiring some PROFESSIONALS in TV instead of overpriced ex-players, and maybe, just maybe, people will start watching.
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Rating: 3.4 / 5 with 5 rating(s)
June 20th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Why do you care if or how WSJ makes money? Or is that just an awkward excuse for being cheap?
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
June 20th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
People make it sound like NFL Network is so freaking expensive. If you’re not smart enough to get DirecTV and can’t afford the extra few DOLLARS to get the channel, then I guess I’m glad I’m not in your position, and I’m not rich by any means. Seriously, just eat one less Ho-Ho a week and deal with it. You’re already throwing away your “hard earned money” on Comcast, what’s a few extra bucks for something you actually want to watch?
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
June 20th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
I won’t pay a cent to anybody to watch the NFL. Period. And until the fans take this approach you’ll see the ESPN’s and NFLN’s keep squeezing every penny they can…just say NO….don’t buy the advertisers products and write them and tell them that…football games should be FREE to all…
when the people who control the purse strings get the picture that fans are serious…then fans can start to work on the players salaries…
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Rating: 2 / 5 with 6 rating(s)
June 20th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
To all who think this would be a good thing, let’s stop and consider who benefits most from a merger: the consumer, or the corporation that controls the market?
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Rating: 4 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
June 20th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
One of the highlights of the week was the Celtics fans booing Stuart Scott during the NBA Finals tropy presentation.
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Rating: 4.5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
June 20th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Florio:
Just a tip… If you want to go big time, you cant be a cheapskate
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
June 21st, 2008 at 12:11 am
I agree with DarthJay. It’s $2 a month for us with Comcast. If you are going to cry about two freakin dollars, maybe you should start watching figure skating. That’s free.
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Rating: Not yet rated
June 21st, 2008 at 12:21 am
Agree 100% with marader78 and moonbeam.
Please tell me this doesn’t mean Mike & Mike will be doing NFL Network games…please Florio, promise me it won’t happen.
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Rating: Not yet rated
June 21st, 2008 at 7:59 am
OHhh.. The saga of the NFLN continues.
Poorly run from the get go…the only thing they have going for them is the NFL brand….and they still screw that up. Pretty hard to imagine having billions of fans clammoring for each football game, highlight show, draft show, rumor web site, yet not even thinking about tuning into your network.
For those who complain that ESPN will ruin the network, lets have a little reality check. Currently the NFL network runs 24 hours a day and repeats about 3 different shows and about 4 commercials that they run during every commercial break, 24 hours a day. No one can deal with that.
The partnering with ESPN is a good thing for all. If NFL had it’s way, it would make all NFL content exclusive to their network. They can’t do it now because then no one would see their product…but that exclusivity is in the works. No one wants NFL content to be exclusive to the NFLN. If ESPN can teach the NFLN one thing, it is how to get people to tune into their network. ESPN is in most homes in the US and they started out showing Rugby and strong man competitions. Maybe ESPN can turn around NFLN’s marketing approach and steer it away from the Betamax and Apple PC business models.
All the potential of NFLN was squandered when they took the Sunday Ticket and made it an exclusively DirecTV product. I know that NFL priced it out of this world for cable and other outlets, but that was their poor decision. Again..Betamax marketing model in practice.
It is a total shame to have such potential….the billions of football fans in the world would LOVE to tune in to NFLN and watch football content 24/7. It would beat the heck out of watching BSPN show baseball highlights for 9 months out of the year. Face it. no one likes baseball, but that is an entirely different rant.
But thanks to the DirecTV deal, no one sees their network, they sell no commercials, and they are now reduced to 2 or 3 shows per day. They have nothing to offer…they are taking a big chance by exclusively broadcasting games a chance that no one will see their product.
Oh, and Chris Berman is jack***. I was watching the US open and every time I heard his voice I wanted to puke. That idoit has no business doing play by play anything. The guy ruined the NFL draft and now is doing golf?
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
June 21st, 2008 at 8:57 am
Giving Jamie Dukes his own show is an error that pales in comparison to tapping Bryant Gumbel to call their first season of NFL games. That shot a lot of credibility. I still watch NFLN ten times more than ESPN, but the content is admittedly getting crusty (further evidence that the NFL and Los Angeles are not the best bedfellows). Linking with ESPN would be basically admitting they cannot get past the red tape of airing nationally on their own. I never had an interruption in service, but the Comcasts and ClearChannels of the world didn’t like a fledgling network telling them how it is and what they were entitled to. The problem is ESPN has gotten so consumer driven that the content suffers. If they merge, NFLN needs to retian creative control (and educate some of there execs as to what NFL fans really want to see).
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Rating: Not yet rated
June 21st, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I didn’t read the RIGHT HERE because I’m not into Florio’s games to generate more clicks for his pocketbook.
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Rating: 1 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
June 21st, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Hey Drew, I don’t know if anyone has told you yet, but you can get games on your PC. It’s called “NFL Sunday Ticket” “SuperFan- supercast” Check it out. It cost extra but I think it’s worth it. I usually have 2 TV’s and my laptop running on sundays. Sorry for sounding like a directv commercial.
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Rating: Not yet rated
June 21st, 2008 at 2:28 pm
I think that maybe when that omsbudperson(Spellcheck please) from ESPN came out against the Patriots that maybe she knew that the NFL and ESPN were beginning talks to try and merge and wanted ESPN to be fair and balanced and not try to hang ANY team out to dry seeing as how the NFL Network is owned by the NFL.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 1 rating(s)