A week after the announcement that ESPN and the NFL would partner in a mega-deal, which will see the league take an equity stake in the dedicated sports network, there are still plenty of questions to be sorted out. Perhaps the most pressing is a potential regulatory battle the transaction may face from the Trump administration.
But there’s plenty of other knock-on effects for a deal this big. One such impact might center around the scheduling of the first round of the College Football Playoff.
Many will remember last year, the first of the expanded 12-team playoff, there were some significant scheduling conflicts with the NFL during the first round. Prior to the expanded playoff, that Saturday had traditionally belonged to the NFL, with the 12-team format, which changed. The CFP played three games that Saturday, two of which went directly against an NFL doubleheader the same afternoon.
But with the recent deal between ESPN and the NFL, there’s now a direct link between the two competing football entities. ESPN, of course, is the exclusive broadcaster of the CFP. Now, the NFL will likely own part of ESPN as soon as next year. Whereas a stalemate between the two sides for ownership over that weekend may have been a reasonably likely outcome prior to this deal, it now seems less likely.
The question is, which side will win out?
In one scenario, ESPN might leverage its position as the exclusive broadcaster of the CFP to try to convince the NFL to move off that Saturday in December. Traditionally, those Saturday games have been played on NFL Network, which ESPN will own if/when the deal gets approved. It’s unlikely that ESPN would want to counter-program itself with both CFP and NFL games airing simultaneously.
However, last year, exercising a bit of its muscle, the NFL opted to put these games on broadcast television, one game on NBC and the other on Fox. This year, the NFL is deploying the same playbook, giving Fox a doubleheader that Saturday. The CFP has yet to announce its first round schedule, but it will be telling whether or not it decides to change its strategy this year.
Of course, the other factor in this equation is that ESPN sublicenses two first round games to TNT Sports. Last year, it was TNT competing against the NFL, not ESPN. This shields ESPN somewhat from having to compete directly against the NFL, although if that pair of games continues to air simultaneously with the NFL, their value could be diminished in future sublicensing agreements. ESPN also earns the advertising revenue from those games, which is similarly diminished because of the NFL competition.
More likely, the dynamic of this new relationship will help swing matters the other way, with the CFP ceding ground back to the NFL. Should the ESPN-NFL deal be approved, the NFL will be a minority owner in ESPN. And while minority owners don’t tend to exert much control in normal corporate settings, this situation is different. The NFL still holds the leverage over ESPN, and now they’ll have a vested interest in the network’s financial success. It’s rather apparent that the two CFP games currently sublicensed to TNT would be more valuable to ESPN without direct NFL competition, and ESPN can certainly influence the CFP to schedule the games in a different window.
Should the NFL get its wish, the CFP would likely move one of its three Saturday games to Friday, creating enough room for both entities to coexist on Saturday with minimal overlap. Given the new deal, that would seem to be where things are headed.
Though, there’s one wrench that could shakeup this entire equation: more CFP expansion. By the time the ESPN-NFL deal gets approved, the playoff could very well have already expanded past 12 teams, in which case scheduling will become even more of a nightmare, and potential NFL conflicts seem inevitable. But in the event the CFP stays at 12 teams for the foreseeable future, it’s unlikely the schedule will continue in its current form.
Just don’t count on it being the NFL accommodating the CFP.