ESPN in talks to carry more US football matches

By Andy Fixmer  |   2008-6-22  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

WALT Disney Co's ESPN - the most-watched sports channel - is in partnership talks with the National Football League to carry more games, according to an insider.

The NFL Network is considering a deal that could give ESPN Thursday and Saturday night games, the source told Bloomberg News.

A deal may end the league's carriage dispute with cable systems, the Wall Street Journal reported. NFL Network Chief Executive Officer Steve Bornstein has been meeting with Disney executives, the newspaper said. Disney CEO Robert Iger and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell are also involved, the Journal said.

"They banked on the nation's appetite for NFL programming being insatiable and that they could use that as leverage for the carriage they needed," Paul Swangard, managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon, said. "Well, lesson learned."

Under one scenario, ESPN would carry the eight regular season games scheduled by the league on the ESPN Classic channel, the Journal reported. The NFL channel started in November 2003, airing highlights, interviews and the league's annual draft.

Disney fell 95 cents, or 2.9 percent, to US$31.94 on Friday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Burbank, California-based Disney, the second-largest US media company, has dropped 1.1 percent this year. ESPN began airing Monday Night Football in 2006.

"We have a long-term and extensive relationship with the NFL," Mike Soltys, a spokesman for Bristol, Connecticut-based ESPN, said yesterday in a statement. "To that end we are always in discussions with them about mutual projects." Soltys declined to comment beyond the statement.

"We talk to ESPN on a wide range of issues," NFL Network spokesman Dennis Johnson said. He also declined to elaborate.

The NFL Network asked federal regulators last month to force Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp, the largest US cable provider, to make the league's channel more widely available.

Comcast carries its own sports networks on a basic tier, while placing the NFL Network in a package that costs more, the NFL said

Comcast has said the NFL agreed to have the network appear on a sports tier.