NFL Working Toward Local Accords Over Patriots Game
Unclear Whether League Will Compensate Three Stations For Sharing Telecast With CBS, NBC Affiliates
By Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 12/28/2007 11:40:00 AM
With the big New England Patriots-New York Giants game just a day away, the NFL had scored an accord with one TV station and was working toward an agreement with two others that had secured what they thought were exclusive local broadcast rights to the contest.
On Friday afternoon, the league said it had reached an agreement with WWOR/My9 under which the station would televise the game in the New York market.
Meanwhile, WCVB-TV in Boston was continuing to work toward a resolution with the NFL Network for additional coverage rights to the game in which the Patriots were looking to continue their march toward joining the 1972 Miami Dolphins as the league’s only undefeated champions. Sister station WMUR-TV holds local broadcast rights in Manchester, N.H.
Upon learning on Dec. 26 that NBC and CBS would join the NFL Network in nationally simulcasting the potentially historic game Saturday at 8 p.m., executives at News Corp.-owned WWOR, and the ABC affiliates WCVB and WMUR said that the NFL had violated their contracts. The stations had paid for the local rights --the NFL requires that its cable games be made available on a local broadcast station in the markets of the participating teams -- to the contest long before the simulcast play call was revealed. The stations, hoping to catch big ratings and ad dollars with the marquee match-up, averred they had the exclusive rights to carry the game locally, with an expectation that the NBC and CBS affiliates in those markets would not air the games there.
NFL Network, locked at the line of scrimmage over license fees and positioning with many cable operators, only counts some 43 million subscribers. Feeling the heat from Washington and not wanting to shut out many of its fans, the NFL brought in CBS and NBC in order to make the game available to all U.S. TV households.
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello on Friday said NBC and CBS would not have agreed to present the simulcast without clearing the game nationally, including the aforementioned markets.
Relative to WWOR, Aiello said it would televise Pats-Giants, but the league would not discuss the terms of its agreement, including whether the station would receive any compensation for WNBC and WCBS also presenting the contest in the New York DMA.
A spokeswoman for WCVB-TV said Friday evening that the station would televise the game and that it was still working toward resolving issues with the NFL Network over additional coverage rights.
