Some kids would be happy with a Fraggle stick car for Christmas. Other kids want the whole factory.
Michael McCarthy of FrontOfficeSports.com reports that the NFL will put the rights to its pair of 2024 Christmas games up for auction. The bidding is likely to start at $50 million per game.
It won’t be a surprise if it stops at or near $100 million. Last year’s trio of captive-audience games played on December 25 averaged 28.7 million viewers. In January, Peacock paid $110 million for a wild-card playoff game. This year, Amazon will pay $120 million for a wild-card game.
It’s unclear whether the networks that televised prior Christmas games paid extra for them. This time around, the networks might be miffed that they have to jockey for the privilege to purchase games that were already part of the 272-game regular-season packages.
But that’s just the way it goes in an industry with very limited supply. The customer is always right? Not here. Not ever.
It’s a seller’s market. And it always will be. Unless and until the NFL loses its ability to attract massive live audiences.