NFL

9 Pages 2310 Words

portsline carry NFL games on the Internet, but the experience is much like listening to the game on the radio. The technological advancements being created should allow the audience to engage in the action. Maybe the NFL games will eventually be broadcast solely through the Internet where they can hook up their TV to their computer allowing them to choose their own camera angles, control slow motion and instant replay and choose their favorite announcers to call the game.

While it is clear that new broadcast technologies are on the horizon and bigger and bigger contracts will be made between the NFL and competing media giants, it is not clear who will and should be responsible for negotiating these deals. To date, the League has coordinated this effort. Their primary advantage is economies of scale. The League has the ability to negotiate with the television networks knowing that all 256 or so regular season NFL games and three weeks of play-offs plus the Superbowl capture a record number of American males between the ages of 18 and 34. That seems much more powerful than an individual team boasting about 16 regular season games and an uncertain number of potential post-season games. However, large market teams contend that equal distribution of revenues is unfair because their teams are attracting larger audiences. This is the argument posed by every large market team in every sport in each marketing category. Their belief is very Darwinist much like traditional business model ideals. When Chrysler struggled in the late 1970’s into the 1980’s, Ford and GM didn’t step in and offer a couple billion to help Chrysler stay on its feet. (The US government did, but that is a different story.) If Chrysler went bankrupt, that would just open up the market for Ford and GM to find new customers. This ideal has a lot of credence in traditional business, but in a league like the NFL there is an important need for other teams t...