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NFL And ESPN Reach Major Media Rights Deal

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NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and ABC Sports President George Bodenheimer announced a new eight-year deal that will give ESPN eight full seasons of broadcasting rights for Monday Night Football, expanded NFL studio programming, more highlight rights for TV and ESPN.com, the Pro Bowl, NFL Draft, 3D rights and enhanced international rights.

The deal, which gives the NFL $1.8 billion per week, is a significant 63% increase over the existing deal that runs out in 2013.

According to Peter King, the deal will significantly raise the salary cap starting in 2014, when the deal kicks in.

Major player benefit of new CBA shows in gigantic ESPN extension: Starting in 2014, $13m more per team per yr on cap from ESPN deal alone.less than a minute ago via TweetDeck Favorite Retweet Reply

ESPN’s significantly-enhanced NFL rights package for the extension will include:

  • Telecast rights to 17 Monday Night Football games per season for eight additional seasons (2014-2021).
  • Rights to more than 500 new hours of NFL-branded studio programming per year, starting this week. Popular programs such as ESPN’s Emmy Award-winning Sunday NFL Countdown pre-game show (expands to three hours), NFL Live (expands to one hour year-round), Monday Night Countdown, NFL PrimeTime, and NFL Matchup will continue, and ESPN will create more NFL-branded studio programming, including NFL 32 and NFL Kickoff, both debuting this week.
  • Expanded highlight rights across ESPN’s television and ESPN.com;
  • Pro Bowl;
  • NFL Draft, which ESPN has covered since 1980;
  • 3D distribution rights;
  • Rights to simulcast network coverage of ESPN’s MNF and NFL studio programs on tablet devices through ESPN’s WatchESPN App;
  • Continued Spanish-language rights to MNF on ESPN Deportes;
  • International rights, including distribution of MNF on ESPN International networks in select markets in Brazil, the Caribbean, Africa, Middle East, Israel, Europe and Australia-New Zealand through 2021; regular season, playoffs and Super Bowl in select markets, totaling 30 million households in 144 countries and territories across five continents; and the ability to utilize NFL programming on all platforms as part of a linear stream of ESPN network programming.