This news isn’t surprising. The XFL came to a deal with ESPN/ABC and FOX yesterday. They made a big deal about the agreement. It was covered on most football websites — because the NFL is brutally slow right now. It was a win for the XFL. Now information about the deal is coming out and one thing we thought was the case is the case. The XFL isn’t getting a dime for its television rights.
That’s fine by the way. A lot of start-up leagues have to prove themselves. Essentially they purchase airtime from ESPN or FOX and then sell advertisements against their purchased air time and whatever profit the league makes they keep. Another scenario would be that ESPN and FOX still don’t pay a dime but the network and league split the advertising revenue through some type of predetermined revenue share. We don’t know what the case is with the XFL, but we do know that the XFL isn’t getting money from its two partners.
They are getting the networks to cover production costs which is a huge win and should cut down on overhead. It’s expensive to produce a watchable sports broadcast. The XFL probably has an understanding of how to execute something similar since it can rely on its institutional knowledge of producing WWE events, but a football game isn’t exactly the same. Better to leave that to the experts.
The other big win for the XFL is that ESPN/ABC and FOX gave the league some pretty solid timeslots and national broadcast exposure. It’s just harder to reach viewers on cable. The XFL has a guaranteed number of games on broadcast networks and it will be easier to get exposure versus what the AAF had to go through — even though the AAF had CBS as a partner.
So the XFL isn’t getting anything for its TV rights but if it proves itself, it will be able to sell those rights at a later date. For now, the goal should be to last one entire season.
