, but Disney is refusing to pay $3.8 billion a year for Monday Night Football

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/19/nfl-asking-for-100percent-increase-on-tv-rights-disney-pushing-back-.html

NBC, CBS, Fox and Disney -- which owns ABC and ESPN -- have begun negotiations to renew their NFL TV rights. CNBC's Alex Sherman reports Disney is balking at paying 100% more, citing the high cost of producing Monday Night Football. "NBC, CBS and Fox are likely to accept increases closer to 100% than Disney, which is currently paying much more than the three broadcast networks for its Monday Night Football package," reports Sherman. A decade ago, Disney agreed to pay $1.9 billion per year for the rights to Monday Night Football, while NBC, Fox and CBS each pay around $1 billion. "Disney has already rejected paying anywhere close to $3.8 billion per year for its new deal," says Sherman.

, but Disney is refusing to pay $3.8 billion a year for Monday Night Football

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/19/nfl-asking-for-100percent-increase-on-tv-rights-disney-pushing-back-.html

NBC, CBS, Fox and Disney -- which owns ABC and ESPN -- have begun negotiations to renew their NFL TV rights. CNBC's Alex Sherman reports Disney is balking at paying 100% more, citing the high cost of producing Monday Night Football. "NBC, CBS and Fox are likely to accept increases closer to 100% than Disney, which is currently paying much more than the three broadcast networks for its Monday Night Football package," reports Sherman. A decade ago, Disney agreed to pay $1.9 billion per year for the rights to Monday Night Football, while NBC, Fox and CBS each pay around $1 billion. "Disney has already rejected paying anywhere close to $3.8 billion per year for its new deal," says Sherman.


Disney should be very careful about getting ESPN in too deep. Cord-cutting is projected to more than double over the next 12 months as cable subscribers begin seeking out other options that don't include programming they have little interest in. The Thursday night package appears to be headed to the NFL network and Amazon prime as FOX has made noise about pulling out and no other network has expressed an interest in picking it up. There are some signs that networks drunken sailor on a Saturday night approach to sports programming spending is starting to get reeled in. NBCSN is shutting down, FOX is looking to drop out of the Thursday night
package and now this. It's getting interesting.

ESPN has college football in their back pocket. They are in a position where they can tell the NFL to go pound sand.

Report: NFL wants ESPN to pay $3.5 billion per year for Monday Night Football rights, but ESPN is willing to pay $2.4 billion per year (https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/02/23/disney-nfl-have-a-gap-of-more-than-1-billion-per-year-in-their-initial-positions/)

ESPN currently pays $2 billion a year for the rights to Monday Night Football, which is the most any network pays for NFL rights (https://awfulannouncing.com/espn/nfl-tv-rights-2022-disney-espn-abc-pushing-back-mnf.html). But Sports Business Journal's John Ourand reports Disney initially asked for $3.5 billion (https://twitter.com/Ourand_SBJ/status/1364043020266594306) per year to renew their rights deal for the next 10 years. According to ProFootballTalk's Mike Florio, "common sense suggests that the two sides will meet in the middle, possibly at $2.95 billion per year. If, after all, ESPN put $2.4 billion on the table knowing that ESPN wanted $3.5 billion, it could easily be argued that ESPN knew or should have known that the two numbers would set up a final agreement at the midpoint. But that’s hardly a hard-and-fast method for bridging a financial gap. ESPN may stop short of $2.95 billion, especially if no other network is ready to pilfer the rights to Monday nights. Then there’s the question of whether new Disney CEO Bob Chapek would walk away from NFL rights — and the question of whether Disney can make the NFL think that Chapek would."