Comcast concerned about future of exclusive NFL Network games amid carriage dispute

NFL Network has been dark on Comcast’s Xfinity cable systems for five days as the cable provider negotiates a fresh carriage agreement with Disney, the new owner of NFL Network.

It appears there are two primary holdups stalling negotiations, according to a new report by Austin Karp in Sports Business Journal. First, Comcast wants assurances that the NFL Network will continue to carry seven exclusive NFL games throughout the entirety of its new carriage deal. And second, Disney is seeking to return NFL Network to a more basic tier of Xfinity offerings. NFL Network has been moved to higher, more expensive packages on Xfinity in recent years.

As for the first issue, NFL Network has long guaranteed distributors like Comcast that it would carry at least seven exclusive NFL games each season. These games drive much of the value for the network when negotiating deals with distributors; without the seven-game package, NFL Network would simply be a supplemental channel filled with ancillary NFL programming rather than a must-have network with exclusive games during key portions of the NFL season.

Assurances that the network would fulfill its seven-game minimum were never much of an issue under league ownership. But under Disney ownership, it’s possible these NFL Network games could shift to other Disney-owned networks like ESPN or ABC in the future.

This won’t be an issue next season, per Karp, who reports NFL Network will be allocated a seven-game slate as normal. However, Disney has not given Comcast “a guarantee that NFL Network would continue to have a slate of seven exclusive games into the future of any longer-term carriage deal.”

The second issue, tiering, has been a common refrain in sports-focused carriage disputes recently. Comcast would like to keep NFL Network in the higher tier, where it can pay fewer per-subscriber fees to Disney and avoid passing the channel’s costs onto consumers that may not watch the network. Disney, on the other hand, likely sees NFL Network as on-par with channels like ESPN or ESPN2, both of which are included in more basic tiers, and believes it should be compensated as such.

Karp cites sources suggesting the cyclical nature of NFL Network content, particularly the fact that there is little worthwhile programming between the NFL Draft and the start of the season in September, as reason the channel should remain on the higher tier with other specialty sports channels.

That very programming gap gives Comcast quite a bit of leverage in this negotiation. The company can reasonably hold out for a few months without its customers missing any important NFL Network programming, all the while Comcast doesn’t have to pay for NFL Network during the least-important months on the football calendar. Of course, there’s no guarantee Comcast could get a better deal from Disney in August than it can right now. In fact, the opposite is likely true.

Regardless, these negotiations could well determine the future of the exclusive seven-game slate on NFL Network, which itself is important to how all NFL fans, not just Comcast customers, will consume games in the coming years.