360DigitalInfluence

After several years of public relations campaigns and battles at the Federal Communications Commission, the league and the cable provider finally reached a truce today that will see the NFL Network show up on the cable company’s basic digital package later this year.  In the end, the compromise meant that the league agreed to a reduced fee in order to gain additional carriage in Comcast homes.  Next up for the league is to try to gain carriage on other cable systems — Time Warner Cable and Cablevision among the largest.

Having followed this for years (yes, years), it’s not hard to say who won and lost in this battle of the titans.  In the end, I give the nod to Comcast in this one.  They were able to use their market size and the threat of ever decreasing carriage to get the league to lower its proposed fee.  The NFL, which had a much weaker hand, saw that its efforts to put pressure on the NFL via the fans (its “I want my NFL Network” campaign), Congress (Arlen Specter et. al.) and the Federal Communications Commission (Kevin Martin) fail, forcing it to cut its fee.  As I’ve written before, the League’s hand was weak because its product — the NFL Network — was weak, primarily because of its lack of live games.

This, however, is not the end of the game for the NFL.  It still has to deal with other cable providers who currently do not carry the channel.  That will not be easy — one only needs to look at Time Warner Cable’s ongoing fight to keep MASN, the regional sports network that carries the Baltimore Orioles and the Washington Nationals, off its cable systems in North Carolina, as an example.

Nor is it the end of the game for consumers worried about higher cable bills.  Even though the NFL dropped its demand of Comcast from 70 cents to somewhere between 40 and 50 cents, look for Comcast to pass along this cost to consumers (previously Comcast made the channel available to those — like me — who were willing to pay an additional $5 or so a month for it and a variety of other sports channels such as NHL Network and NBA TV).  It may only be a buck or two a month, but I have no doubt my bill will be going up as will the bills of those who did not pay for the package .  Moreover, given way the leagues control television rights, I can’t get around this by watching on the Internet like I can with say “Family Guy” or “Bones.”  But that’s a story for another post.  Back to work….