While NFL ratings have dipped the last couple of years, their television rights are still a hot property.
The TV rights for the NFL’s Thursday Night Football package are available now, and reportedly Fox, ABC, CBS and NBC all are interested.
It’s somewhat surprising that Fox is interested, because on October 25, 2017, Fox CEO James Murdoch expressed concern that having games on Thursday is perhaps over-saturating the market and contributing to lower ratings
“There’s a question mark for the NFL, which is just to think hard about how they’re licensing,” Murdoch said. “So I do think the proliferation of Thursday availability—and the proliferation of football generally—does mean that you’re asking a lot from customers to watch Thursday. And then they watch a lot more college football game on Saturdays, and then on Sundays, and then on Monday Night Football, etc. It’s a lot. So I do think that preserving the scarcity value of those events and that audience is something that is worth thinking about.”
So why is Fox bidding on a property their CEO was critical of? Simple. Even with the NFL’s viewership dip, the league is still one of the most watched properties on television, and the Fox Network has ratings issues.
You see, even with the anthem protests turning off some viewers, the NFL is still a rating’s giant.
“A whopping 46.1 million viewers witnessed the Miracle in Minneapolis Sunday,” tweeted NFL PR VP Brian McCarthy after the Vikings’ last second win over New Orleans on Sunday.
There was a report in late November, 2016, the NFL was thinking about dumping Thursday Night Football due to heavy criticism of the product. Critics have blasted the quality of play (team’s have less time to prepare). Another issue is players not having ample time to physically heal from the previous Sunday.
“Guys don’t have time to recover,” Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin said on November 17, 2017. “It’s hard to recover in four days. Thursday night football should be illegal.”
But has made it clear Thursday Night Football isn’t going anywhere.
“We are fully committed to ‘Thursday Night Football’ and any reports to the contrary are unfounded,” the NFL said in a statement on November 28, 2016.
If it makes dollars, it makes sense, and TNF makes the NFL a lot of money, just like the Pro Bowl All-Star game, which many consider unwatchable, due to terrible tackling (guys don’t want to get hurt). There’s been talk for years about pulling the plug on the Pro Bowl, but it never happened. In 2017, the NFL signed a three-year deal with Orlando to host the game.
Thursday Night Football and the Pro Bowl are here to stay.
And this Thursday Night Football bidding war illustrates that even with a ratings decline, the NFL still draws big TV numbers, much larger than most other shows, and is considered a valuable property for networks.
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