The billion-dollar deal between the NFL and ESPN officially closed Saturday after receiving approval from government regulators. according to Andrew Marchand of The Athletic.
Originally announced in AugustThe deal will see the NFL acquire a 10% stake in the network from The Walt Disney Company. In exchange, ESPN will add NFL Network to its family of networks, along with NFL RedZone and the league’s fantasy football platform.
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The deal is valued at several billion dollars and will see the world’s biggest league officially join forces with the world’s biggest sports network, the culmination of a decades-long relationship. Affected NFL employees would officially be part of ESPN in April and NFL Network would be integrated into ESPN’s platforms at the start of the next regular season.
Statement from both parties, via The Athletic:
“The NFL and ESPN are pleased to announce the official closing of the sale of NFL Network and other NFL Media assets to ESPN,” the NFL and ESPN said in a joint statement to The Athletic. “With this closing, we will begin integrating NFL employees into ESPN in the coming months. As we look to the future, NFL fans can expect expanded NFL programming, greater access to the NFL Network, innovative Fantasy experiences and unprecedented coverage of America’s most popular sport.”
The deal is large enough that it will take some time to see the full ramifications. According to The Athletic, an interesting possibility would be for ESPN to use the RedZone channel name across different sports, although this idea has limitations due to ownership of television rights.
This will also mean the end of the “Monday Night Football” doubleheadersas four of the ESPN games will move to NFL Network. In total, ESPN would broadcast 28 total games, while NFL Network would broadcast seven. There could also be a sharing of personalities, such as ESPN’s Adam Schefter appearing on NFL Network, his former employer.
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A major motivation at play here appears to be the new streaming service ESPN Unlimited, which costs $29.99 per month unless you have certain cable subscriptions and will soon offer NFL Network. ESPN struck another massive deal last fall to also take over streaming platform MLB.tvexpanding its reach across the world of sports.
