ESPN Jumps Into Bed With the NFL. What About Everyone Else?

The Town with Matthew Belloni

The Ringer

Society & Culture

4.3 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

LIVE SHOW in Los Angeles on August 27. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here for tickets!⁠ Matt is joined by Huddle Up’s Joe Pompliano to break down why the NFL is acquiring a 10 percent stake in ESPN in exchange for NFL Network and other media assets. They discuss the complicated details of this deal and what's in it for both sides, including how this will affect ESPN's NFL offerings and its upcoming stand-alone streaming service (02:42). Matt finishes the show with an opening weekend box office prediction for ‘Freakier Friday’ and ‘Weapons’ (27:06). For a 20 percent discount on Matt’s Hollywood insider newsletter, ‘What I’m Hearing ...,’ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Email us your thoughts! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thetown@spotify.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Host: Matt Belloni Guest: Joe Pompliano Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jessie Lopez Theme Song: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:33.5	It is Wednesday, August 6th.
0:36.0	Disney released its earnings today, and it's a familiar story. Gains
0:39.7	in parks, send the streaming services, declines in linear TV. But the big news for Disney has been trickling out for a couple weeks now.
0:47.8	ESPN is about to become a full-fledged streaming service. None of this ESPN Plus limited offering nonsense. Starting August 21st,
0:56.1	30 bucks a month gets you all of ESPN's premium sports on its linear channels. That includes
1:01.2	NFL, NBA, MLB, even Cornhole on the Ocho. Plus, and here's the big one, they announced a
1:08.2	complicated new deal with the NFL in which the league will now own 10% of ESPN.
1:14.0	Lots of ramifications there. And in exchange, ESPN is taking over the NFL network and NFL Red Zone,
1:20.1	Craig's favorite channel. Plus, they get a few more NFL games and some programming as well.
1:24.8	The NFL still owns Red Zone, but ESPN also will be able to launch
1:28.5	Red Zone branded formats to other sports. Makes sense for college football, in my opinion, basketball
1:33.8	maybe. ESPN will keep the NFL draft through 2030, and in a separate deal, we'll take
1:39.4	over WWE events like WrestleMania for the next five years. Peacock had those rights and ESPN is reportedly
1:45.3	paying $1.6 billion for them. Big increase. All of this represents a pretty big statement by
	...

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