ESPN-NFL Deal Will Be Bad News for Fans

ESPN-NFL Deal Will Be Bad News for Fans originally appeared on Athlon Sports.

Football on TV as we know it has already peaked. The NFL is undergoing a digital revolution that nobody asked for and nobody wants. By continuing to sell to the highest bidder, the NFL is raising prices and watering down the fan experience.

The long-rumored ESPN-NFL Network merger became official on Tuesday. ESPN acquired rights to NFL Network and NFL RedZone, while the league will own a 10% equity stake in the network. The timing has to set off red flags. ESPN will launch a new standalone streaming service on Aug. 21 for $29.99 per month.

ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro explained the rationale behind the partnership: “This deal helps fuel ESPN’s digital future, laying the foundation for an even more robust offering as we prepare to launch our new direct-to-consumer service.”

The NFL famously builds networks. We wouldn’t have FOX if not for football. The league is a huge part of CBS’ programming. ESPN is smart to anchor its new product with NFL content. But the “direct-to-consumer” goals will end up being a problem for the rest of us.

Football is already getting more expensive. I just re-upped my NFL Sunday Ticket package on YouTube for $480 and my NFL+ subscription for $99.99. I didn’t want to spend that money, but there was no debate. Beyond professional duties, I’m an addict. The NFL, ESPN and every other outlet knows that. If they continue to spread out the product and we all keep buying into it – which we will – the league and its broadcast partners will continue to raise prices.

Eventually the bigger packages will become cost-prohibitive to many viewers, and they’ll offer à la carte games. I don’t want to be in a position in which I have to pay $2.99 to see a Chargers-Broncos game because my Week 8 fantasy matchup comes down to Ladd McConkey vs. Courtland Sutton. Obviously I’m going to click “buy.”

ESPN isn’t alone in its effort to capitalize on the NFL’s popularity. The league has no reservations about expanding its menu of streaming-only games. This season, YouTube will exclusively air the Friday night Week 1 game in Brazil; Amazon continues to be the exclusive home of Thursday Night Football; and Peacock and Netflix have holiday games. Week 7’s Texans-Seahawks Monday night game will air on ESPN+ – but not over cable.

Commissioner Roger Goodell has argued in the past that the NFL has to go to these streaming services because that’s where the young viewers are. But for most normal households, the combined costs of the streaming services are becoming burdensome. Paying $29.99 for the ESPN service won’t help. Even for all the cord-cutters, the new streaming model is adding unwanted expenses.

Patriots owner Robert Kraft offered an ominous explanation after the NFL and ESPN finalized the contract.

“Strategically,” he wrote in a statement, “we have to grow our salary cap and can only do that by – we want to keep labor peace, we have to grow our audience. This transaction helps us do that.”

There are several problems with Kraft’s statement. He’s basically acknowledging that they don’t want to do this, because they know fans will suffer. Then he tries to blame the players for demanding more money. The salary cap is a fixed percentage of the total revenue. He doesn’t mention that if the salary cap grows, that means the owners’ profit grew as well.

Even worse, he’s putting the burden of keeping labor peace on viewers. Don’t complain that you need five new passwords and are paying 30% more – if you don’t, the league will have a labor disruption. It’s a strange threat embedded in what was supposed to be a celebratory statement.

Kraft’s promise to expand the audience is also incongruent with streaming strategies. Putting playoff games on Peacock shrunk the audience for those game. While, streaming-only games might bring a few new eyeballs, they leave many more fans scrambling. Imagine if they started selling games to tech companies that even fewer of us want to subscribe to.

The NFL likes to market how the sport unites us as a country. Makes sense because it’s the only kind of programming everyone watches at the same time. That shared viewing experience is part of the sport’s magic. That won’t happen when they start climbing down the chain of tech companies that want to show games. 

The litmus test will be the Super Bowl. Goodell says the game “certainly won’t” be streaming-only during his tenure. We’ll see where the league is and where we are as viewers in a decade. If a direct-to-consumer platform could bring in a windfall of new revenue, the league would be tempted. Right now, the Super Bowl is a de facto national holiday. Put it on a streaming service and it immediately will feel lesser.

Kraft should consult with his former quarterback and now fellow owner Tom Brady. At his peak, Brady would take a little bit less for the long-term health of the team. The NFL can push rates higher and many of us will still watch. But in the long run, it will hurt the sport.

Journalistic integrity in question

From a journalistic standpoint, the NFL-ESPN partnership is being widely criticized. ESPN has been at the forefront of investigations into the league. Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru, who co-wrote “League of Denial,” worked for ESPN when they exposed the incompetent handling of concussions. ESPN already got badly scooped by The Athletic’s Pablo Torre when it came out that a judge ruled the NFL had been colluding to avoid guaranteed contracts and that the NFLPA hid the results. The new partnership effectively ends ESPN’s potential to cover the NFL from a critical perspective.

Disney boss Bob Iger said this week that nothing will change regarding ESPN’s journalistic practices. We’ll see.

Streaming services could end up adding quality additional content, but that will also come at a cost as well. Last Christmas, Netflix put on a halftime show with Beyoncé that cost a fortune. They didn’t do that because they like us and wanted to give us a holiday present. They know they’re going to get more of our money in the long run by establishing football on their platform.

The NFL product is already getting too pricey. In several years, the current cost could seem modest. The league always wants more ... more regular-season games, more playoff games, more international games and possibly more teams someday. They will try to make more money off broadcasting games in the short term even if there is a long-term cost.

Maybe I’m getting too old for a new model. All I want is to wake up, sit on the couch, turn on a London game, catch Jay Glazer’s injury updates on the FOX pregame show, watch six-and-a-half hours of Scott Hanson running ad-free RedZone, watch full games on my laptop and second TV and then wrap it up with Sunday Night Football on NBC. Is 14 hours of uninterrupted football at a reasonable rate too much to ask for? If the NFL-ESPN partnership heads in the wrong direction, these halcyon days of football viewing could become a distant memory.

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This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Aug 8, 2025, where it first appeared.