Report: NFL discussed future TV rights with broadcast partners in June

The NFL held private meetings with its four broadcast network partners in June.

The NFL held private meetings with FOX, CBS, NBC, and ESPN, its four  network broadcast partners, in June, according to Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand.

There will be billions — and billions — of dollars at stake when the TV rights deals for the league when the next round of media rights is decided. Broadcast rights for NFL games are locked up until after the 2021 season. The league had hoped to settle future agreements before the end of 2020.

Ourand dropped three key pieces of knowledge in a tweet:

Some of the other nuggets from the meetings, which each took place over two hours in Boston on June 3, per the report:

The NFL has held no formal talks after those initial meetings, and none are on the schedule as the league has turned its attention to starting its season amid the pandemic.

  • CBS made it clear that it wanted to keep its Sunday afternoon package.
  • NBC wants to keep “Sunday Night Football,” which has set a television record by placing as the top prime-time series for nine straight years.
  • Fox focused on its Sunday afternoon package, and it wants to keep NFC-focused. Fox’s executives did not spend much time on “Thursday Night Football.” The broadcaster may have an interest in renewing its Thursday night deal, but it quickly became clear that Thursday night was far less of a priority than Sunday afternoon.
  • ESPN positioned itself as the wild card. It spends nearly double the other networks on media rights but is saddled with the so-called cable package that generally has the least appealing games of all the packages.