When the NFL first started NFL Network more than 20 years ago, it wanted to create a distribution channel in part to guard against one of its television partners pulling out. That, of course, never happened. Instead, the NFL used the network to bring more football -- the games and everything that surrounds them, all year long -- to fans. The network created Thursday Night Football and launched television coverage of the NFL Scouting Combine. It provided year-round breaking news and shows about the league, its teams and players.
On Tuesday, in a bid to greatly expand the reach of NFL programming and make it more accessible to more fans, the NFL and ESPN announced the league will sell NFL Network to ESPN, allow ESPN to distribute NFL RedZone to pay-television operators and combine NFL Fantasy Football with ESPN Fantasy Football.
In exchange, the NFL will take a 10 percent equity stake in ESPN.
"I think we've hooked up with the best partners we can have," Robert K. Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots and the chairman of the league's media committee, said in an interview. "That will help expose us to more homes, more of an international audience. Strategically, we have to grow our salary cap and can only do that by -- if we want to keep labor peace, we have to grow our audience. This transaction helps us to do that."
The deal, which had been discussed on and off for several years, still requires approval from team owners, which is considered a given, and federal regulators, a process that could take many months. Until regulators sign off and the deal closes, fans are unlikely to see any significant changes to ESPN or NFL Network. But completion of the complex transaction promises to bring more NFL programming to more people:
- ESPN's platforms will license three additional NFL games per season, which will air on NFL Network. And ESPN will also adjust its overall NFL game schedule, with four games -- three that currently air on ABC during Monday double-headers and one game that appears on ESPN+ -- shifting to NFL Network. That means NFL Network will continue to show seven regular-season games per season.
- NFL Network will be fully integrated into ESPN's new direct-to-consumer streaming service while still having traditional pay-television distribution, with the expectation that ESPN will use its vast resources to add to and enhance programming on NFL Network.
- ESPN will distribute NFL RedZone for pay-TV operators, while RedZone will still be available digitally on NFL+, a plan that should give even wider exposure to the broad-view broadcast that Kraft called "an amazing product." NFL RedZone was seen as a key element of the deal for both parties.
- NFL Fantasy Football and ESPN Fantasy Football will merge into one product designed to serve a growing global demand.
- The NFL will continue to own and operate NFL Films, NFL+, NFL.com, the NFL Podcast Network, the NFL FAST Channel and the official sites for the league's 32 clubs.
The NFL's longtime focus of its media strategy has been maximizing reach. It's why its games remain on broadcast and cable television, why it has Thursday night games on Prime Video, Christmas games on Netflix, Sunday Ticket on YouTube. And it's why it has been steadily expanding its slate of international games. The strategy has been enormously successful: In 2024, 72 of America's 100 most-watched telecasts were NFL games, including the Super Bowl, which is annually the most-watched telecast of the year by a wide margin. This deal will put NFL programming on more platforms than ever before. Kraft said the equity stake the NFL is taking in ESPN represents a commitment of the two parties to each other to do the best programming and increase exposure for the NFL. The NFL wants ESPN to do well, Kraft said, because now the league is a shareholder.
The deal is also an acknowledgement by both ESPN and the NFL that the media landscape has changed dramatically since NFL Network launched in November of 2003. Cable subscriptions have dipped in the ensuing years, while direct-to-consumer products and streaming services have proliferated. Kraft sees this union being highly beneficial to both sides.
"They're people we have confidence in," Kraft said. "This is a way for us to broaden our audience. We've done so much. I don't think there's any company like Disney and ESPN in doing sports, all sports. We need to expose our product to more people and a greater variety of people.
"We're hooking up with the strongest sports amalgamation of sports product. We're giving them what I believe is the best content, and they're giving us the greatest operational company to grow our audience globally."
