Author: Imported Author 1794118

Ever since the NFL announced it was looking to sell NFL Network and other media assets, ESPN had been seen as one of the favorites to make a deal.

Nearly five years later, a framework is finally in place.

The NFL announced Tuesday night that it has entered into a nonbinding agreement with ESPN. Under the terms, ESPN will acquire NFL Network, NFL Fantasy and the rights to distribute the RedZone channel to cable and satellite operators and the league will get a 10% equity stake in ESPN.

The league and ESPN still have to negotiate a final agreement and get approval from NFL owners. The agreement will also have to undergo regulatory approvals.

“Sometimes great things take a long time to get to the point where it’s right. And we both feel that it is at this stage,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a call with The Associated Press.

Along with the sale of NFL Network, the NFL and ESPN will have a second nonbinding agreement where the NFL will license to ESPN certain NFL content and other intellectual property that can be used by NFL Network and other assets that have been purchased.

“We have been talking about it in earnest for the last few years. But interestingly enough, we started talking about this over a decade ago but nothing really ended up happening. And we got back at it when I came back to Disney after my retirement,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said in a call with the AP.

What ESPN gets

ESPN is expected to launch its direct-to-consumer service before the end of September. The service would give cord-cutters access to all ESPN programs and networks for $29.99 per month. The addition of more NFL programming increases the value.

Many viewers will receive the service for free as part of their subscription to cable, satellite and most streaming services.

“When I came back to Disney and assessed essentially the future of ESPN, it became clear that ESPN had to launch a bigger and more robust and digital or direct-to-consumer product, not only for the sake of ESPN’s business, but for the sports fan,” Iger said. “And obviously, when you start thinking about high-quality sports content, your eyes immediately head in the direction of the NFL because there’s really nothing more valuable and more popular than that.”

NFL Network — which has nearly 50 million subscribers — would be owned and operated by ESPN and would be included in ESPN’s direct-to-consumer product.

The NFL RedZone channel would be distributed by ESPN to cable and satellite operators. However, the NFL will continue to own, operate and produce the channel as well as retain the rights to distribute the channel digitally. ESPN would also get rights to the RedZone brand, meaning RedZone channels for college football and basketball or other sports could be coming in the future.

NFL Fantasy Football would merge with ESPN Fantasy Football, giving ESPN the official fantasy football game of the league.

NFL Network will still air seven games per season. Four of ESPN’s games, including some that are in overlapping windows on Monday nights, would move to NFL Network. ESPN will license three additional games that will be carried on NFL Network.

What the NFL receives (and retains)

The league gets a 10% equity stake in ESPN. Aidan O’Connor, a senior vice president at the Prosek Partners marketing firm, estimates the value of that would be $2.2 billion to $2.5 billion.

ESPN is currently 80% owned by ABC Inc. as an indirect subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. The other 20% is owned by Hearst. Once the deal is official and approved, the breakdown of ESPN will be 72% ABC Inc., 18% Hearst and 10% NFL.

This isn’t the first time the league has had an equity stake in a digital or communications business. It had that in the past with Sirius Satellite Radio and SportsLine. The NFL could also have equity in the newly formed “Paramount Skydance Corporation,” which owns CBS, due to the league’s partnership with Skydance.

“This is new as far as a partner now operating a business that we built, ran and grew,” said Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s executive vice president of media distribution. “It’ll also be a little bit new again with some of the dynamics here, but we’ll continue to balance that in a really arm’s length way where we’ll think about how we manage and work across to all our partners.”

The league will continue to own and operate NFL Films, NFL+, NFL.com, the official websites of the 32 teams, the NFL Podcast Network and the NFL FAST Channel (a free ad-supported streaming channel).

“The moves align with the NFL’s longstanding ambition to reach $25 billion in annual revenue by 2027 — a target first set in 2010, when league revenue stood at approximately $8.5 billion,” O’Connor said. “Financially, the move also signals to investors that ESPN is doubling down on differentiation and content stickiness by offering a scarce and premium product in a crowded marketplace. Intentionally ceding equity to the NFL transforms ESPN from a media licensee into a true platform partner — with few properties rivaling the league in terms of cultural significance, appointment viewing, audience reach, and monetization efficiency.”

No major changes yet

Viewers will likely not see any immediate impacts until next year once everything is approved.

Besides ESPN, the biggest winner in this could be NFL Network, which had seen reductions in original programming the past couple years. “Total Access,” the network’s flagship show since its launch in 2003, ended in May 2024 amid a series of layoffs and cost-cutting moves. “Good Morning Football” also moved from New York, where it had been since its start in 2016, to Southern California last year.

NFL Network moved to a broadcast facility across the street from SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, in 2021.

“The thing that’s exciting for us is that we have put a lot into the network. I think it’s been very effective for fans. We know it’s in good hands,” Goodell said. “They’re innovative, they recognize great production and know how to produce it. They will do a fantastic job of operating the network and taking it to another level.”

___

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says he will begin trying to remove Democratic lawmakers from office Monday if they do not return after dozens of them left the state in an attempt to block the adoption of redrawn U.S. House maps sought by President Donald Trump.

Some of the lawmakers, including those who left Sunday for Illinois or New York, clapped back, accusing Abbott of using “smoke and mirrors” to make threats that go beyond his legal authority.

The revolt by Democrats in the state House and Abbott’s threat ratcheted up a widening fight over congressional maps that began in Texas but expanded to include Democratic governors who have floated the possibility of rushing to redraw their own state maps in retaliation. But their options are limited.

The dispute also offers another example of Trump’s aggressive view of presidential power and his grip on the Republican Party nationally, while testing the longstanding balance of powers between the federal government and individual states.

“We’re not going to tolerate our democracy being stolen in a modern-day stagecoach heist by bunch of law breaking cowboys,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Monday, flanked by several of the lawmakers who fled. “If Republicans are willing to rewrite rules to give themselves an advantage, then they’re leaving us with no choice: We must do the same. You have to fight fire with fire.”

At the center of the escalating impasse is Trump’s hope of adding five more GOP-leaning congressional seats in Texas before the 2026 midterm elections. That would bolster his party’s chances of preserving its slim U.S. House majority. Republicans currently hold 25 of the state’s 38 seats.

A vote on the proposed maps was set for Monday in the Texas House, but it cannot proceed if Democratic members deny a quorum by going to another state, which puts them beyond the reach of Texas law enforcement.

After one group of Democrats landed Sunday in Chicago, they were welcomed by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, but declined to say how long they were prepared to stay away from Texas.

“We will do whatever it takes. What that looks like, we don’t know,” said state Rep. Gene Wu, the Texas House Democratic Caucus leader.

But legislative walkouts often only delay passage of a bill, including in 2021 when many of the same Texas House Democrats left the state for 38 days to protest new voting restrictions. Once they returned, Republicans still passed that measure.

Four years later, Abbott is taking a far more aggressive stance and warning Democrats that he will seek to remove them from office if they are not back when the House reconvenes Monday. He cited a nonbinding 2021 legal opinion issued by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton that suggested a court could determine that a legislator had forfeited their office.

He also suggested the lawmakers may have committed felonies by raising money to help pay for fines they could face.

“This truancy ends now,” Abbott said.

House Democrats issued a four-word statement: “Come and take it.” And some lawmakers who relocated to other states taunted the governor in response.

“He has no legal mechanism,” said Texas Rep. Jolanda Jones, one of the lawmakers who was in New York. “Subpoenas from Texas don’t work in New York, so he can’t come and get us. Subpoenas in Texas don’t work in Chicago. … He’s putting up smoke and mirrors.”

The state of the vote

Lawmakers cannot pass bills in the 150-member Texas House without at least two-thirds of them present. Democrats hold 62 of the seats in the majority-Republican chamber, and at least 51 left the state, said Josh Rush Nisenson, spokesperson for the House Democratic Caucus.

Republican House Speaker Dustin Burrows said the chamber would still meet as planned on Monday afternoon.

“If a quorum is not present then, to borrow the recent talking points from some of my Democrat colleagues, all options will be on the table,” he posted on X.

Paxton, who is running for U.S. Senate, said on X that Democrats who “try and run away like cowards should be found, arrested, and brought back to the Capitol immediately.”

Fines for not showing up

A refusal by Texas lawmakers to show up is a civil violation of legislative rules. The Texas Supreme Court held in 2021 that House leaders had the authority to “physically compel the attendance” of missing members, but no Democrats were forcibly brought back to the state after warrants were served.

Two years later, Republicans pushed through new rules that allow daily fines of $500 for lawmakers who don’t show up for work as punishment.

The lack of a quorum will also delay votes on disaster assistance and new warning systems in the wake of last month’s catastrophic floods in Texas that killed at least 136 people. Democrats had called for votes on the flooding response before taking up redistricting and have criticized Republicans for not doing so.

Illinois hosts Texas lawmakers

Pritzker, a potential 2028 presidential contender who has been one of Trump’s most outspoken critics during his second term, had been in quiet talks with Texas Democrats for weeks about offering support if they chose to leave the state.

Last week, the governor hosted several Texas Democrats in Illinois to publicly oppose the redistricting effort, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom held a similar event in his own state.

Pritzker also met privately with Texas Democratic Chair Kendall Scudder in June to begin planning for the possibility that lawmakers would depart for Illinois if they decided to deny a quorum to block the map, according to a person with direct knowledge who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.

“This is not just rigging the system in Texas, it’s about rigging the system against the rights of all Americans for years to come,” Pritzker said Sunday night.

Trump is looking to avoid a repeat of his first term, when Democrats flipped the House just two years into his presidency, and he hopes the new Texas map will aid that effort. Trump officials have also looked at redrawing lines in other states.

___

Associated Press writers Bill Barrow in Atlanta and Nadia Lathan in Austin contributed to this report.