Comcast Might Carry NFL Network Widely—For Much Less
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts was agreeable to giving the NFL some of what it seeks in an FCC program carriage complaint case (CD April 17 p6) that ended Friday, if the league sells its cable channel for a lower price. Speaking as the last witness for Comcast, Roberts agreed with Michael Carroll, the company’s lawyer, that he'd be willing to give the NFL Network broad distribution if it lowered the price. He also discussed some details of Comcast’s multibillion- dollar offer in early 2006 to carry the eight games that ultimately ended up on the NFL Network instead of the cable company’s own sports network, Versus.
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“This to my mind has always been about what price for how much content,” Roberts said. Carrying the network on a sports tier, as Comcast now does, means “we save $50 million a year,” he said. “That’s the right thing to do.”
The Golf Channel and Versus, which the NFL alleges Comcast favored over the league, cost about 25 cents monthly per subscriber, Roberts said. Those channels have new shows during the full year, unlike the NFL Network, which costs about 70 cents per subscriber per month, he said. The companies’ current carriage contract expires at month’s end and no deal has been reached to extend it, Roberts testified.
“The NFL wants the NFL Network to be on a widely distributed tier that fans don’t have to pay extra for,” a league spokesman told us after Roberts’ testimony. He noted that the Golf Channel and Versus are on Comcast’s expanded basic analog tier. That’s more widely distributed than the “D2” digital programming package discussed in court.
As part of Comcast’s offer several years ago to put the games that wound up on the NFL Network on Versus, the cable operator offered to pay $250 million to $350 million annually in fees for other pay-TV providers to also distribute it, Roberts said. That offer also included a stake in Versus in a multibillion-dollar deal, he said. Although Roberts “was obviously disappointed” when the talks with the NFL fell through, some within Comcast seemed relieved because it was a high price, he said.