{"id":123008,"date":"2025-08-06T07:21:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T07:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/123008\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T07:21:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T07:21:13","slug":"espn-nfl-deal-makes-football-league-part-owner-of-disney-sports-giant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/123008\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN, NFL Deal Makes Football League Part Owner of Disney Sports Giant"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tESPN<\/a> and the NFL<\/a> are helping to rewrite the playbook for keeping sports-media sustainable.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn an unorthodox maneuver, the league will take a minority stake in the giant Disney<\/a> sports outlet, which will gain control over NFL Network and the NFL RedZone highlights service, in addition to three pro-football games that were being shown via the NFL\u2019s own cable assets. The tie-up is likely to boost the appeal of a new direct-to-consumer streaming service ESPN plans to unveil in the weeks leading up to the next NFL season \u2014 a service that would be turbo-charged over time if it included RedZone and more football.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey have to come out of the gate for that launch with some big bang, and clearly, this is it,\u201d says Daniel Cohen, executive vice president of media rights advisory at Octagon, a talent and sports advisory firm that is part of Interpublic Group. The arrangement will give Disney more heft at the negotiating table with distributors and new firepower in its effort to outmaneuver streaming rivals.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe pact is the most recent example of sports entities and media companies combining business. Fox recently took a 33% stake in Penske Entertainment<\/a>, which owns the IndyCar motor racing series as well as Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Fox also owns part of the nascent United Football League.<\/a> ESPN in June took a stake in the Premier Lacrosse League, in addition to striking a new five-year rights deal with the organization. Warner Bros. Discovery is a part owner of the upstart women\u2019s basketball league Unrivaled<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe deal with Disney will give the NFL a 10% stake in ESPN, which estimates from Octagon value at as much as $2.2 billion to $2.5 billion.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cToday\u2019s announcement paves the way for\u00a0the world\u2019s leading sports media brand\u00a0and America\u2019s most popular sport to deliver an\u00a0even more compelling experience for NFL fans, in a way that only ESPN and Disney can,\u201d said\u00a0Robert A. Iger,\u00a0Walt Disney\u2019s CEO, in a statement. \u201cCommissioner Goodell and the NFL have built outstanding media assets,\u00a0and these transactions will add to consumer choice, provide\u00a0viewers with even greater convenience and quality, and expand the breadth\u00a0and value\u00a0proposition of Disney\u2019s streaming ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSuch alliances may throw a few flags on the field. ESPN could come under new scrutiny from sports organizations ranging from the NCAA to UFC, all of whom will no doubt analyze their own agreements with the network to determine if they are getting terms more favorable or less than the league that now co-owns the media property. And ESPN may be forced into more difficult situations when its journalists seek to report on hot-button issues tied to the NFL, such as the effects of game play on the brains of its athletes; the league\u2019s growing sway over traditional media companies; or off-field behavior by prominent players. In 2003, for example, ESPN and the NFL were at odds with one another over \u201cPlaymakers,\u201d an original ESPN drama series that showed football players coping with personal problems, injuries, drugs and more. The show got high ratings, but was scrapped under pressure from the league.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf other leagues take issue with ESPN\u2019s new embrace of the NFL, they aren\u2019t saying so out loud. Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League declined to comment on any ramifications of the NFL taking a stake in ESPN. And within the NBA, however, there is a belief that the agreement will make ESPN stronger, according to a person familiar with the matter and are \u201ccomfortable\u201d with the new alliance. The NBA declined to make executives available for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tThese new types of team-ups make increasing sense in an era when sports rights have become critical for media companies that want to attract broad audiences \u2014 something advertisers and distributors still crave, even as consumers migrate to watching video favorites on demand, at times of their own choosing. \u00a0At the same time, the price tag for keeping sports in the portfolio is soaring exponentially, even as many traditional media companies are grappling with dips in advertising and distribution.<\/p>\n

\n\tNFL games are, at least so far in the streaming era, the most stable pieces of property a media company can get. The broadcasts are typically the most-watched of the last few years. Adding distribution of NFL Network and the RedZone service makes ESPN \u201cthe lion in the jungle,\u201d says Cohen, and better monetizes the rights fees for Disney.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd yet, the economics of the cable networks showing the games aren\u2019t so robust. Thanks to the widespread adoption of streaming, the ESPN and ESPN2 cable networks are each projected to see their subscribers drop to 57.9 million and 57.8 million respectively by the end of 2026, according to data from Kagan, a research unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence, compared with 61.4 million each at the end of 2025. The NFL Network, meanwhile, has seen its subscriber base drop steadily, according to Kagan. To 46.7 million in 2024, compared with 72.3 million in 2023.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe alliance may also serve Disney well in the not-too-distant future. In its last set of rights deals struck for a 11-year period starting with the 2022 season,<\/a> the NFL won the right to overhaul its contracts and seek better terms after 2029. Owning a piece of ESPN is likely to keep the league from seeking a re-do of rights for \u201cMonday Night Football.\u201d \u201cThis ensures some longer-term stability in the relationship between ESPN and the NFL beyond 2029,\u201d says Cohen. For its part, the NFL would have a piece of Disney\u2019s future. Bob Iger, the CEO of the company has increasingly articulated a path that hinges heavily on reaching digital viewers.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnder terms of the deal, ESPN will merge its fantasy football properties with those from the league. The NFL will continue to The NFL will continue to operate properties such as NFL Films and the NFL+ subscription streaming outlet, as well as official sites for the league\u2019s 32 clubs. The NFL retains the rights to distribute NFL RedZone digitally.<\/p>\n

\n\tDisney and the NFL may need time to maneuver the deal into the end zone. Regulatory review could take a year, suggests Cohen, and the NFL Players Association may have concerns tied to whether the pact would affect revenue from media rights that is shared with players. But if the pact is completed, Cohen says, it could represent \u201can increasingly relevant blueprint for other leagues to look at.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ESPN and the NFL are helping to rewrite the playbook for keeping sports-media sustainable. In an unorthodox maneuver,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":123009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7299,5723,51,50,1232,76027,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-123008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-disney","9":"tag-espn","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-streaming-wars","14":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}