Despite the fact that Disney will be forced to pony up a combined $9.2 billion over the next eight years to retain the rights to ABC'S "Monday Night Football" and ESPN's Sunday-night pigskin telecasts, ABC Inc. prexy Bob Iger and ABC Sports/ESPN prez Steve Bornstein insisted Wednesday that they still have hopes of keeping football profitable.
"Because of the synergy from having both (Sunday and Monday night) packages, we actually believe that we stand a chance of making some money off of the agreement," Iger told a group of TV journalists gathered in Pasadena for the TV Critics Assn. press tour.
At the same time, however, Iger --answering questions via satellite from New York -- admitted that ABC's retaining "Monday Night Football" was "a close call" given that its $4.4 billion payment is more than double what the network currently shells out to the National Football League.
"It would be wrong to suggest that this was an easy decision for us to make," Iger said. "We were not willing to pay anything to keep 'Monday Night Football.' (But) we did not have much leverage. The league had tremendous leverage, not just due to the value of its product but because of the competition."
Iger stressed that NBC's bidding for "MNF" was "very aggressive" and that "there were times as of late (Tuesday) afternoon that I thought we could lose 'Monday Night Football.' But the incumbent has the advantage, and that came through here for us."
Asked why ABC was forced to pay so much more to keep the NFL in the face of declining ratings, Iger pointed out that the new Monday-night package will feature a new start time of 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT), an NFL decision that will allow the games to play throughout primetime in the East, creating "a ratings positive" that increases the value of the franchise itself.
"Games that end at 11 p.m. (in the East) stand a good chance of getting better ratings than games that end at midnight," Iger said.
Sources have said that the NFL agreed to let ABC keep "Monday Night Football" despite NBC's strong bid because of Disney's agreement to pay astronomical fees for the ESPN package. The $4.8 billion ESPN pricetag comes out to $600 million per season, more than double the $265 million currently paid yearly by TNT and ESPN combined.
ESPN's Bornstein said that both the ABC and ESPN deals were negotiated together using just a single number: $1.15 billion per season as a package. But Bornstein downplayed any potential cost pass-along to cable consumers as a result of the vastly higher fee, believing that any cable increase would be "modest."
"Most of our (cable system) affiliates have already agreed to (carriage) increases in order for us to keep football," Bornstein said.
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