The NFL is beginning to think about the future of its games in the midst of what NFL executive VP and chief media officer Hans Schroeder acknowledges is a rapidly-changing media universe.
The creation of Skydance, major Netflix layoffs, a looming NBCUniversal spinoff, Fox’s imminent deal to buy Roku and other major media moves put any imminent renegotiation of the league’s media rights in doubt, and could very well cause the league to rethink how it packages games in the future. In fact, it is already thinking about that packaging, as Schroeder told reporters Wednesday morning.
When asked by The Hollywood Reporter about any looming rights talks, Schroeder said that the league is “trying to look into a media landscape that probably has more change to it than ever before.”
“Three of our partners are going through fairly meaningful transactions or structural changes, which I’m sure they’re very focused on,” he continued. “Those are very interesting to us too to see how the partners are what their future business will look like, and so we can, on the outside looking in, have a better sense of how they’re thinking about their business.”
Indeed, broadcasters like Fox, CBS and NBC still hold enormous reach, but their parent companies have different levels of scale. Predicting the state of broadcast TV in 2030 right now seems like a fools errand. In August Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said that his company would do an early renegotiation with the NFL, and would return to the matter in a couple of years as their existing deal nears its end. Gerry Cardinale, the RedBird founder who is involved with Skydance made similar comments earlier this month.
“We’re always talking to our partners,” Schroeder said Wednesday. “Those conversations run a range of topics, and so you know I’ll let the partners say publicly whatever they want to say publicly, but from our view, we’re continuing to focus on how do we continue to make the NFL and the media and our game distribution better, both tomorrow and in the future.”
Similarly, both YouTube and Netflix have inked deals for games over the past few years, and the league sees an opportunity to bring them further into the fold, with both international games (given the global reach of both streamers) and creating more “eventized” games can entice them.
Will Netflix’s programming changes mean more of a desire for NFL games, or less? Will YouTube get back into the game beyond Sunday Ticket? They are all questions that the league is surely thinking about.
“There’s really this gathering momentum about how we can further eventize some of the parts on our schedule and our calendar, and how you bring different elements to it,” Schroeder said. “I thought a really magical one was what collectively the Saints, the city of New Orleans, ESPN, the Falcons, the league did to really celebrate the return to Superdome in week four. That was a really magical moment on the calendar that made that Atlanta New Orleans game all that more special, but there’s a lot more ways we can do that.
“As we start to get into it, what a global partner can do that can truly bring a global audience behind it is really exciting,” he added. “And those platforms like a YouTube or Netflix that have global fans well beyond the NFL that they can tap into and they can pull into for us is incredibly exciting to see. It’s just the tip of the iceberg there about how those two things can come together, and so we think there’s a lot more to come.”
But the imminent media story for the NFL is Disney’s Super Bowl LXI next year. The league is already excited about what the entertainment giant has planned, with alternate broadcasts that include a special Manningcast, a Pat McAfee led altcast, and a Star Wars-themed animated altcast. And, yes, the winners of the game will make the trek to Anaheim on Monday to go to Disneyland.
“This will be a Super Bowl unlike any other,” Schroeder says. “Disney, as a partner, brings such a collection of breadth with the ownership of ESPN, ESPN’s first Super Bowl ever, ABC’s first in 20 years or so, and you’re going to see that with all the ways it will be integrated across all the Disney programming. You’re going to see it the week of with roadblocks throughout L.A. and across all the Disney platforms, how they cover Super Bowl. You’re going to see it on game day, and then you’re going to see it in the game itself. I think we’ll be doing four different alternative productions of the game. The fifth was Spanish-language broadcast, really reaching out to all different segments and parts of our families.”