(06-16-2015 10:00 AM)Wedge Wrote: (06-15-2015 11:21 PM)omniorange Wrote: Not sure the Worldwide Leader in Sports wants to have to contend with the SEC on CBS and the B1G on FOX at 3:30 PM slot each and every week.
Why? CBS and Fox have NFL games all afternoon on Sundays. That hasn't caused ESPN to collapse. When the NFL last bid out the Sunday night games, they made one bid to get those games for ABC and then let NBC outbid them; they decided that having the Monday games on ESPN was enough for them.
Two things here. One, ESPN doesn't and never has had any real valuable content on Sunday afternoons. Certainly not during football season. So NFL games really do no harm to them. But they do have valuable content on Saturdays, on ESPN and ABC. Having other marquee games on during that time, would harm their ratings share, and would not be ideal. Especially when they have the option to help stop it from happening. So what Neil is mentioning is valid.
Two, your description of how ESPN lost Sunday Night football is not accurate. It was not because ESPN thought that one night was good enough. It was because ESPN thought the NFL was bluffing when they said someone submitted a higher offer. ESPN was outright outbid. Then ABC, ensuring the same mistake did not happen, secured the bid for Monday Night Football. They then had to move it to ESPN, because ESPN stood to lose a lot of subscriber fee income if they did not retain live primetime NFL games. But they lost a lot on that, because whereas MNF used to be the main game of the week, and Sunday Night football was the C game (ranking went MNF game, National TV 4:00 game, other network star 1:00 game, SNF game), it now reversed with Sunday Night football on NBC being the marquee game. ESPN more or less remained even having the same caliber game, but the company as a whole lost their marquee game that used to be on ABC. This was actually the catalyst that caused ESPN to take over the ABC Sports division and merge it into one. Once that happened, they moved the game. That was not calculated decision on ESPN's part to lose Sunday Night Football.
Let's not forget when they lost the BCS for four years to Fox as well, who to their detriment, was not set up to take advantage of it yet (they didn't have an FS1 type channel, or the content during the season to make it count). The basketball contract mentioned above, the coupling with Fox to snag the PAC 12, doubling the NBA contract before it even hit the open market, and for that matter renewing MNF five years early. It sort of shows ESPN is concerned to some extent, of losing their monopoly. So that idea cannot be dismissed.