LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Analysts say The Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN has scored a touchdown by renewing its Monday Night Football deal with the NFL for another eight years through the 2021 season.
Although on the surface, the deal seems as if it would raise costs tremendously, there’s not a huge increase from the tail end of the current deal to the start of the new one. Costs go up a little in each year of the deal.
Factoring in a one-time bump when the new contract kicks in for the 2014-2015 season, Morgan Stanley analyst Benjamin Swinburne says the deal will increase costs 6 percent a year for the life of the contract. That’s below the 10 percent annual inflation for sports rights fees in general over the past decade.
