Clay Travis Wonders If ESPN Has To Give Up On NBA Rights To Afford College Football Playoff
ESPN and the College Football Playoff agreed to a landmark deal last week. The media company agreed to pay $7.8 BILLION over six years ($1.3 billion per year, when factoring in the extension of their current contract) for the rights to the expanded playoffs coming next season. OutKick founder Clay Travis raised some important questions about ESPN's finances following the announcement.
"ESPN's profit margin is basically gone now because of what they're going to have to spend for the College Football Playoff and … assuming they extend the NBA [contract]," Travis said.
"A lot of people are going to cancel [ESPN]," he continued. "The average guy really loves football. And if [he's] trying to save money, [he] can subscribe to a sports service for four months and get all the football [he] wants, and then not pay for the other eight months.
This is an important point for a few reasons. With the way streaming is going – specifically with leagues fracturing off and charging separate fees for their products – people are going to be forced to make choices.
Those choices involve really deciding which sports and leagues are the most important to them. Look what the NFL is already starting to do by moving some of their marquee games to streaming-only. I made the argument last month that we're not that far away from pay-per-view NFL playoffs.
(Mark J. Rebilas/USA TODAY Sports)
That might seem crazy, but don't dismiss the idea so quickly. The NFL tested it out with the Peacock playoff game and already gave Amazon Prime a playoff game next year thanks to this season's success.
And, if fans do have to start making choices about which sports they watch in order to save money, which ones are going to be left behind? The NBA seems like an obvious choice.
If ESPN were smart, they'd dump the NBA and go all-in on NFL and college football coverage
The NFL and college football are the biggest draws in American sports. There is no debate about that. ESPN already has massive agreements to carry both. That makes the NBA quite expendable.
And, quite frankly, the NBA isn't great for ESPN's business. The league leans so hard into left-wing politics and all the "talent" that ESPN employs who are NBA "experts" fall in line with that political messaging.
If the network were to move on from the NBA rights deal, they'd certainly cut down heavily on their NBA coverage. That could lead to a lot less of political talk that turns off average American fans.
The smartest move ESPN could make is addition by subtraction – get rid of the league that turns off fans and start focusing on the ones people really want.