The PiPress‘ Gordon Wittenmyer writes about this week’s “Monday Night Football” as being the sixth-to-last of the decades-long series of football games that ABC has broadcast to Americans from coast to coast. When the MNF shift is completed, we’ll have ESPN covering that night’s games, and ESPN giving up its Sunday Night Football programming to NBC - allowing that network to get a piece of the football action - meaning that all four networks (although ABC’s will be via its ESPN network(s) and periodic Super Bowls) will have a piece of the NFL’s games. There was once a day when it was CBS and NBC carrying the Sunday games, with ABC having the Monday contests, then FOX jumped into the fray, with NBC eventually left with nada. Now, everyone should be happy. And with what it costs to broadcast the League’s games, it’s probably better that way.
The next battle I’m expecting to see is whether DirecTV will continue to fork over the billions of dollars it costs to keep the Sunday Ticket package exclusive, a factor that keeps DirecTV from potentially losing subscribers, or at the very least attracting those who might otherwise choose a cable service due to comfort level.
