Any chance D* will pick up OLN HD? Possibly bad news for NHL fans...

[LonghornXP]

The NFL deal with D* is not a revenue sharing deal, so I'm not sure why they would care. The cost to D* is set and the ink is dry.

D* payed big money to the NFL for exclusive rights to carry NFL Sunday Ticket so don't you think the NFL might just have to pay some of that back if they cut off the exclusive contract with D*. Again it seems that the exclusive contract with D* and the NFL had some wiggle room in it for the NFL. From what I hear if D* NFL ST sub numbers drop below a certain amount and/or if the cable based package for the last half of the season has big subscriber numbers the NFL has wiggle room to buy back those exclusive rights at whatever set price they had setup. From what I hear the NFL told D* to take it or leave it and D* took it. Remember that the NFL had all the power in this deal and they can pretty much ask anything they want if D* wanted this package that badly which it seems they did. Also keep in mind that again from what I hear the NFL can at anytime for any reason buy back the exclusve rights at a setup pro-rated price and D* can't do anything about it. The big point I'm trying to make is that if D* NFL Sunday Ticket subs drop below a certain amount and/or the cable package has surpasses a certain setup amount of subs the NFL has the right to buy back the exclusive rights from D* at a much lower pro-rated price.

Can you see how this is working. Say if D* loses tons of NFL ST customers and the NFL feels they can get more money from say the cable companies they want that option open to them. Say if the cable package just takes off like crazy the NFL wants the option to roll with it if they see fit. Right now the NFL likes things the way they are today but they want to be prepared in the future if things change.

 

[cfarm]

D* payed big money to the NFL for exclusive rights to carry NFL Sunday Ticket so don't you think the NFL might just have to pay some of that back if they cut off the exclusive contract with D*. Again it seems that the exclusive contract with D* and the NFL had some wiggle room in it for the NFL. From what I hear if D* NFL ST sub numbers drop below a certain amount and/or if the cable based package for the last half of the season has big subscriber numbers the NFL has wiggle room to buy back those exclusive rights at whatever set price they had setup. From what I hear the NFL told D* to take it or leave it and D* took it. Remember that the NFL had all the power in this deal and they can pretty much ask anything they want if D* wanted this package that badly which it seems they did. Also keep in mind that again from what I hear the NFL can at anytime for any reason buy back the exclusve rights at a setup pro-rated price and D* can't do anything about it. The big point I'm trying to make is that if D* NFL Sunday Ticket subs drop below a certain amount and/or the cable package has surpasses a certain setup amount of subs the NFL has the right to buy back the exclusive rights from D* at a much lower pro-rated price.

Can you see how this is working. Say if D* loses tons of NFL ST customers and the NFL feels they can get more money from say the cable companies they want that option open to them. Say if the cable package just takes off like crazy the NFL wants the option to roll with it if they see fit. Right now the NFL likes things the way they are today but they want to be prepared in the future if things change.

Your scenario would make sense if this was a revenue sharing deal where the number of subs dictates how much money the NFL receives in the end. That's not the way this one is structured. D* pays $3.5 B for the rights to Sunday ticket through 2010. It doesn't matter if they have a million people subscibing or just one, the NFL still gets $3.5 B.

Repeating, I don't see how the NFL would care, because they get paid that set amount no matter what. It's highly unlikely that News Corp through it's FOX deal plus this one would put down 6 or 7 billion dollars and then agree to some clause where the NFL could decide it's worth more later. Never seen a contract written in that fashion unless it's revenue sharing.

 

[jpn]

Repeating, I don't see how the NFL would care, because they get paid that set amount no matter what. It's highly unlikely that News Corp through it's FOX deal plus this one would put down 6 or 7 billion dollars and then agree to some clause where the NFL could decide it's worth more later. Never seen a contract written in that fashion unless it's revenue sharing.

The NFL wants to make the most of its exposure. In the long-term, exposure is a prolonged revenue stream. The D* deal is short-term cash which doesn't expose the product if the subscriber base isn't huge. The NFL learned the lesson of long-term view back in the 60's when they agreed to equally-shared TV revenues.

The "wiggle room" had to be written-into the most recent contract. Doesn't sound like it's in D* best interest, but if the NFL wouldn't budge.... well there's no way D* would walk-away from ST. The NFL knew they had D* over a barrel in this instance.

The 8-game PPV package is oddly structured. Personally, I don't think I'd ante-up $149 for a PPV package that might not carry my team's games. I'd be much more likely to spend $5-$10 on a per-game basis for the out-of-market games I care about. Per-game is also more likely to draw-in the fans who say "why buy 8 games when I can only watch 1 at a time?"

 

[LonghornXP]

The NFL wants to make the most of its exposure. In the long-term, exposure is a prolonged revenue stream. The D* deal is short-term cash which doesn't expose the product if the subscriber base isn't huge. The NFL learned the lesson of long-term view back in the 60's when they agreed to equally-shared TV revenues.

The "wiggle room" had to be written-into the most recent contract. Doesn't sound like it's in D* best interest, but if the NFL wouldn't budge.... well there's no way D* would walk-away from ST. The NFL knew they had D* over a barrel in this instance.

The 8-game PPV package is oddly structured. Personally, I don't think I'd ante-up $149 for a PPV package that might not carry my team's games. I'd be much more likely to spend $5-$10 on a per-game basis for the out-of-market games I care about. Per-game is also more likely to draw-in the fans who say "why buy 8 games when I can only watch 1 at a time?"

Most of what you said is very true and yes the wiggle room was put into the most recent contract. Now yes the NFL does indeed have their money but look at things this way. Firstly the NFL is doing again a test bed for an 8 game package but they are looking at the following options in the future.

Now if this testbed is a success they most likely will do another testbad of both an AFC package and an NFC package that cable can carry but the cable companies cannot offer a single customer both packages as you might guess. If this is another success they would consider buying back D*s exclusive contract and sell the package out in the market for all providers. The problem is that the NFL needs more time to workout how to payback local broadcasters CBS and Fox for their lost advertising revenue which they are looking at. From their point of view they would rather have it exclusive on D* while working all this out.

Also to pointout I'm hearing that the NFL might also consider an all season package for cable companies for specific teams. I'm just saying that I wouldn't count out the chance in a few years that we might have various packages. Another option I've been told is that the NFL might give D* some massive discounts in other areas to allow the package on cable instead of buying it back. It all just depends but I'm hearing quite a bit. For the most part I'll list below the packages that I've heard that the NFL is looking at and considering in the future.

They are looking at the 8-game per week for the last 8 weeks option.
They are also looking at both an AFC and an NFC package as I stated above.
They are also looking at a package for a customer selected team.
They are also considering a regional package which would include all teams within a region.

Trust me in that the NFL has been looking at different packages and cable carriage but they just didn't want to deal with this hassle yet and they also needed to find out if market demand would be enough to offset the hell they would be creating mainly with the broadcasters. We must remember that the NFL wants all NFL games on OTA or basic cable networks and as such they can't just say cable companies can have the package without getting a backlash from those networks. Now IMO and I think the NFL believes it also that they can make more money in the long run with this package and variations available to all providers as long as they think ahead and workout everything with other parties involved and this could take years to complete so now is the best time to conduct testbeds and feel out market demand.

I know I've gone on and on but I must hammer down hard how this all is breaking down.

This again has todo with money but this issue is much more about future packages, pricing and market coverage (which means cable companies will offer these packages).

Now again I'm not saying any of this will happen but this is indeed something that the NFL is working hard at and looking at very closely for the future. I can for the first time in a very long time say that we have a very good chance of seeing all kinds of NFL packages available to all different kinds of providers before or at the end of the D* exclusive contract.

 

[mmarlo]

I wrote to nhl.com. Will post if/when I get a response.

"Unfortunately, we do not have any information available at this time as to whether HD games will be included in [the NHL Center Ice] package. However, we often add programming based on customer requests, and I have forwarded your request to DIRECTV management."

 

[LonghornXP]

"Unfortunately, we do not have any information available at this time as to whether HD games will be included in [the NHL Center Ice] package. However, we often add programming based on customer requests, and I have forwarded your request to DIRECTV management."

Also keep in mind that you should be emailing and asking InDemand because they would be the company that would setup NHL Center Ice HDTV feeds from the networks that broadcast them in HDTV. Even if InDemand passes through the HDTV feeds when available that doesn't mean the providers will carry those feeds. The first step is getting InDemand to pass through the HDTV game feeds. Now the second and IMO the hardest step is getting companies like TWC and D* to carry them. I think just like the NFL we will be seeing more NHL games in HDTV by both the networks and carried by the various providers.

 

[jpn]

Most of what you said is very true and yes the wiggle room was put into the most recent contract. Now yes the NFL does indeed have their money but look at things this way. Firstly the NFL is doing again a test bed for an 8 game package but they are looking at the following options in the future.
...
They are looking at the 8-game per week for the last 8 weeks option.
They are also looking at both an AFC and an NFC package as I stated above.
They are also looking at a package for a customer selected team.
They are also considering a regional package which would include all teams within a region.

...
Now again I'm not saying any of this will happen but this is indeed something that the NFL is working hard at and looking at very closely for the future. I can for the first time in a very long time say that we have a very good chance of seeing all kinds of NFL packages available to all different kinds of providers before or at the end of the D* exclusive contract.

The AFC/NFC splits seem aimed squarely at getting more bidders than just ESPN & OLN. Seems like those are squarely-aimed at Fox & CBS, squeezing more $$$ from the guys who already won the broadcast AFC & NFC packages. It would allow the broadcast networks to enter the PPV arena in conjunction with cable/sat providers. And there wouldn't be a lot of debate about carriage (like whether a local provider carries OLN HD).

It wouldn't surprise me if we see OTA PPV once the OTA broadcasts all switch to digital. Would probably require a stb, but it would have a market.
Now that's exposure!

 

[LonghornXP]

The AFC/NFC splits seem aimed squarely at getting more bidders than just ESPN & OLN. Seems like those are squarely-aimed at Fox & CBS, squeezing more $$$ from the guys who already won the broadcast AFC & NFC packages. It would allow the broadcast networks to enter the PPV arena in conjunction with cable/sat providers. And there wouldn't be a lot of debate about carriage (like whether a local provider carries OLN HD).

It wouldn't surprise me if we see OTA PPV once the OTA broadcasts all switch to digital. Would probably require a stb, but it would have a market.
Now that's exposure!

Again many options are being looked at but one thing is set in stone and that is the fact that the NFL still wants all NFL games to be free OTA and/or on a basic cable network (ie ESPN, TNT and similiar type channels) but their main focus is for most of the games to be on a local network. Now what I said is talking about the games themselves and not any packages/PPV options now or in the future.

 

[cueman98]

I heard on espn radio that what the nfl really wants is eventually to have its own PAY channel.