As an indicator of just how critical the Amazon relationship is to the NFL, the league’s top media execs made a key concession on their “Thursday Night Football” flex scheduling plan to win ownership approval. Games that are flexed must have at least 28 days’ notice, according to SBJ’s Ben Fischer, who is at the owners’ meeting outside Minneapolis. That’s nearly double the 15 days’ notice originally proposed when owners first rejected the plan in March.
That longer lead time is friendlier to the NFL’s biggest fans: the ticket holders. But it could potentially undermine the concept — a team could play four games between the decision to flex and the game in question. That’s more than enough time for their season’s narrative to shift. Or, as NFL Media EVP/COO Hans Schroeder put it, this underscores how high the standard will be for using flex for Thursday nights. NFL execs say it will be used only in cases where the originally scheduled teams are clearly not fit for prime time.
In a brief interview, NFL Chief Media and Business Officer Brian Rolapp conceded the 28-day rule is “not perfect.” But there was an imperative for the league to get something done, and this was enough to get the necessary 24 owner votes. (It got 22 in March.) All other NFL rightsholders have scheduling flexibility in their packages now, Rolapp and Schroeder said, and fans have become used to the potential for movement on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays. Other limits on the flexing include Sunday-to-Thursday flexes being limited to two times per season total and one time per team, tops.
Of course, adding the flex to Thursday nights keeps one of the league’s most important media partners happy. The league is especially invested in the satisfaction and economic return of Amazon, its newest rightsholder. To keep rights fees growing from a streaming environment, the league needs Amazon to love — not just like — “Thursday Night Football.” Not only that, but the NFL also needs other streamers to see NFL programming as must-have. In the NFL’s view, Amazon’s role as the only rightsholder without some kind of late-season flexibility was holding that back.
Everyone interested in Diamond Sports’ bankruptcy proceedings has had the date May 31 circled on their calendars for weeks. That’s when a bankruptcy judge will determine how much in rights fees Diamond will have to pay clubs while it’s in bankruptcy.
But the main event may occur one day earlier: May 30. That’s the deadline for when Diamond has to make its next local media rights fee payment to the Padres. Diamond missed its payment to the team last week, and the grace period runs through May 30.
From what I’m hearing, there’s a good chance that Diamond will miss that Padres payment next week, potentially the first time Diamond would have walked away from a contract. No decision has been made. But such a move would send the teams rights to MLB.
Here’s why: More than two months into bankruptcy, Diamond appears to be no closer to working out streaming deals with any of the nine teams that have not relinquished those rights. Sources suggest that stalemate has pushed Diamond closer to keeping the contracts that make money and walking away from the ones that don’t.
Diamond told MLB that it will commit to pay the full rights fee over the lifetime of those nine team contracts in exchange for their direct-to-consumer rights, sources said.
At the same time, Diamond has promised those teams that it will give those rights back in as orderly fashion as possible if they are unable to make a payment at some point in the future.
To date, those nine MLB teams have remained steadfast in not allowing Diamond to control their streaming rights: Angels, Braves, Cardinals, D-backs, Guardians, Padres, Rangers, Reds and Twins.
Five other MLB teams have allowed Diamond to stream their games: Brewers, Marlins, Rays, Royals and Tigers. Those deals were made before Diamond launched its direct-to-consumer service Bally Sports+ last fall.
The first team this would affect is the Padres, who have a contract that is widely considered to be team-friendly. Sources said Diamond loses money on its Padres deal, which is said to be a 20-year/$1.2 billion deal that runs through 2032. Bally Sports San Diego has seen its pay-TV distribution drop considerably — a combination of tough pay TV negotiations (Dish Network, Hulu and YouTube TV do not carry the channel) and general cord-cutting trends.
Even in bankruptcy, Diamond paid rights fees to teams that would not relinquish their streaming rights — mainly because Diamond was hopeful that it could work out a streaming deal.
MLB is prepared to immediately begin producing and distributing games in any market where Diamond Sports walks away. MLB’s plan is to use existing behind-the-camera staff, most of whom are freelancers. It plans to use existing announcers, most of whom are employed by the teams. And it believes it will convince cable and satellite companies to distribute the games, albeit on different channel positions than the Bally Sports RSN.
The hottest topic among my sources today was this Pete Thamel story on all the snags that are hampering the Big Ten’s media deals, which are slated to start this fall. It’s extremely unlikely that these deals will fall apart over these issues. But it is unusual to see so many issues pop up at a time when these types of deals usually are rubber-stamped.
The whole story is worth a click. These are the parts that I found most interesting:
The Orioles' Adley Rutschman will have a feature on "MLB Central" on Thursday
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