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NFL to add regular-season games to network

Posted on: Monday, 30 January 2006, 09:59 CST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. National Football League's namesake cable network said it would begin broadcasting Thursday and Saturday games in November.

The weekend announcement comes after NFL Network walked away from discussions to sell the rights to top U.S. cable operator Comcast Corp. in a deal that would have netted about $300 million to $400 million per year, according to a source familiar with the talks.

The NFL Network's decision is part of a broad initiative for professional sports teams to create their own cable channels. A plan to add regular-season games could boost viewership.

The NFL launched a digital cable channel distributed on Comcast, the top U.S. cable operator, and other operators that features the ability to call up archived games and news coverage.

On Monday, one analyst viewed the decision positively for both Comcast and Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN cable sports network.

Comcast, which aimed to add the NFL games in its own cable sports network OLN, will escape raising its programming expenses, and ESPN will face a less formidable competitor than Comcast, Sanford C. Bernstain analyst Craig Moffett said in a research note.

"The implication that Comcast did not 'chase' the contract can be taken as a sign of fiscal restraint," Moffett wrote.

The NFL Network, launched in 2003, is owned by the league's 32 teams, according to its Web site.

Source: REUTERS

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