NFL: What ESPN's New Monday Night Football Deal Means for You

Last Thursday, ESPN announced that they have agreed to an eight-year, $15.2-billion extension of their current Monday Night Football rights deal. The contract will allow the network to broadcast the NFL's premier weekly showcase through the 2021 season.

Aside from the actual games, ESPN also plans to produce 500 new hours of NFL-related programming each year: some of which (NFL Kickoff) will be engrossing and entertaining, while some (Audibles) will be borderline unbearable to watch.

On the digital side, the agreement allows ESPN to stream its NFL content to Verizon mobile phones, as well as to its WatchESPN application. Beginning this season, fans will be able to watch Monday Night Football on iPads or similar tablet devices.

"With a multitude of shows, networks and platforms, ESPN will continue to cover the NFL like no other media company can," said ESPN and ABC Sports President George Bodenheimer.

The additional distribution channels will result in additional revenue streams for ESPN, but they won't be nearly enough for the network to fully recoup the full expense of the deal.

Which is where you come in.

News of the extension—which represents a nearly 73-percent increase over the $1.1 billion per year that ESPN had been spending on Monday Night Football—led American Cable Association President Matthew Polka to issue the following statement:

"ESPN has struck a bad bargain for consumers. The sports network's financially wanton deal will push the cost of pay-TV service into the stratosphere, making the product less and less affordable during a time of severe economic stress and high unemployment. Evidently, ESPN is pleased to be known as the worldwide leader of hyper-inflationary price hikes."

With more than 98 percent of U.S. cable providers currently offering ESPN, the network already generates billions in subscriber revenue each year, not to mention the advertising dollars brought in by the actual programs themselves.

There's no question that the new agreement will result in increased subscriber fees for cable operators and, ultimately, consumers. As it stands now, ESPN charges the highest rates in the industry: the network's entire suite of offerings checks in at more than $5 per subscriber per month.

As consumers of pay television—which is the case for approximately 85 percent of ]U.S. households—we don't have much say in the matter. Currently, we don't enjoy the freedom to select the channels that we want on an "a la carte" basis. The Family and Consumer Choice Act of 2007 was designed to give individuals that flexibility, but the bill continues to sit in committee more than four years after its proposal.

Besides, with ESPN continually building its portfolio of broadcast agreements with various leagues (including the NFL, NBA, MLB, NASCAR, FIFA and the PGA Tour), it becomes increasingly more difficult for cable, fiber and satellite providers not to carry the Worldwide Leader on their respective systems.

As we learned in "Those Guys Have All The Fun," broadcast rights are key, which is why every major network made a play at the 2014 and 2016 Olympic Games this past June. Expect to see a similar bidding war if and when the NFL decides to offer a package of Thursday night games.

ESPN executives clearly understand this, which is why they've paid a premium for the Monday Night Football broadcast rights ever since they acquired them back in 2006. More rights mean an increased demand for the network, at very little expense to them. After all, they'll just pass the cost on to you: the consumer.

Are you ready for some (more expensive) football?