It’s Just the Ticket for DirecTV

DirecTV has secured the NFL Sunday Ticket pay package exclusively through the 2005 season and nonexclusively through the 2007 season.

That means the package will be available only on DirecTV for three years. It could become available on digital cable as well after that, although not be on another satellite service.

The five-year agreement provides DirecTV with a powerful weapon in its war with cable and satellite rivals.

NFL Sunday Ticket, which allows viewers to get all Sunday daytime games televised by CBS and Fox, is by far the most popular of the pay sports packages.

To get the package exclusively, DirecTV had to pay a hefty price. The cost has been reported at $400 million a year, or $2 billion over the duration of the contract.

Eddy Hartenstein, DirecTV president, said Thursday those figures were not totally accurate. He said the deal is worth less than $2 billion over five years, and it is structured so that most of the money is paid in the later years.

“We’re certainly not paying $400 million next year,” he said.

Still, DirecTV has been hit with a huge increase. The current five-year, $650-million deal that expires at the end of the season is worth an average of $130 million a year.

So the question is, how much of that increased cost is going to be passed on to the customer?

The package, which has been in existence since 1995 and always exclusive to DirecTV, now costs from $139 to $199 for a season, depending on when it is ordered and what promotional offers are in effect at the time.

There are now about 1.5 million subscribers generating less than $300 million a year. At that rate, DirecTV could stand to lose more than $100 million a year under the new deal.

“I don’t want to mislead your readers and say [the cost] is going to be flat,” Hartenstein said. “But we’ve always delivered great value for our customers. We’re not going to do anything wild or crazy.”

Hartenstein said the hope is that much of the additional cost will be absorbed by the continual growth of DirecTV and added sales for NFL Sunday Ticket.

Hartenstein also pointed out that the new deal calls for enhanced technical innovations, such as high-definition game telecasts, viewer-selected camera and replays and other advanced digital technology.

Also part of the deal will be a new channel, devoted solely to NFL programming.

“We are the destination for all sports fans,” Hartenstein said. “If it’s a ball or a puck, we’ve got it.”

A Long Process

Hartenstein said that although the ownership of DirecTV is in limbo -- a proposed merger with Dish Network owner EchoStar has fallen through -- that was not a factor in the negotiations with the NFL. But ironing out all the details and arriving at acceptable financial terms wasn’t easy.

DirecTV was always out front, and it was reported here on Nov. 1 that an exclusive deal was imminent.

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, during a conference call announcing the deal Wednesday, said, “We had discussions during the past nine months with everybody in the broadcast television business, satellite television, cable television, many, many different providers of new technology, such as high-definition and interactive features. This agreement is the result of a very thorough analysis from our perspective of our choices and the future direction of television.”

Steve Brenner, chief executive of In Demand, which supplies pay sports packages to digital cable, listened in on the conference call and wasn’t buying everything Tagliabue was saying.

“I was disappointed in what he said,” Brenner said after the conference call. “I don’t think we were ever in the picture.”

Digital cable entities such as In Demand can make another run at the package after the 2005 season, which is also when the NFL’s eight-year, $17.6-billion contracts with ABC, ESPN, Fox and CBS expire.

“We’d be foolish not to go after it,” Brenner said, “but we wanted it now.”

Denver Bronco owner Pat Bowlen, the chairman of the NFL’s six-member broadcast committee, said the cable industry faced two obstacles.

“No. 1, they were not in a position to pay the kind of rights fee we were seeking,” he said. “And No. 2, CBS and Fox, which produce the games, had to agree to let cable have the package.

“With DirecTV, we’re in 11 million homes. With cable, it would have been, what, 80 million? That would have had a huge impact on our over-the-air broadcast partners. We realized that, and they realized that.”

Digital cable, in one form or another, is now in about 30 million homes but has the potential to reach 80 million.

“After three years, [digital cable] will have another bite at the cherry,” Bowlen said.

Back on TV

ESPN’s Dan Patrick went to Coconut Grove, Fla., Thursday to interview O.J. Simpson. The interview will be shown as the “Sunday Conversation” on the ESPN “SportsCenter” after NFL football Sunday night.

“I wasn’t there to re-try the case, but with another USC player up for the Heisman, we wanted to see what life was like now for one of the greatest football players of all time,” Patrick said. “He told me people don’t treat him like a pariah, and that he doesn’t live in a cocoon. He watches football games with friends and plays lots of golf. But he also says he’s had to keep friends from going after some people who shout things at him in public.”

In the interview, Simpson says, “A couple of times I’ve seen people get up in the middle of their meals and leave. And I’ve got to say it, ‘I’m glad I ruined your meal. If you feel I’m a murderer, and you feel that way about me, go, leave.’ I don’t say it, but I think it. I’m human. I hope you’re as uncomfortable as you can be when I’m around, and I’ll be around.”

Super Station Update

Sports talk radio stations XTRA and KXTA will become one on Jan. 6 and be known as “XTRA Sports 690 and 1150.” The merger was to have happened Monday but was delayed because of vacations.

The new simulcast lineup will be Tony Bruno, Jim Rome, “Loose Cannons” Steve Hartman and Bill Werndl, and Lee Hamilton. At night, when there isn’t a UCLA or Clipper game, it will the Fox Radio network’s J.T. the Brick, who has gone from being a Rome “smack-off” winner to having his own national show.

That means no more “Kiley and Booms.” Actually, Chuck Booms was let go last week and Steve Mason was brought in as Kevin Kiley’s new partner.

Short Waves

Golfers in the Office Depot Father/Son Challenge, which is being televised by NBC this weekend, are getting younger all the time. The field includes Javier Ballesteros and Stefan Langer, each 12.... Preceding the Father/Son Challenge on NBC Sunday at 10 a.m. will be a one-hour special, “Every Moment Counts,” featuring PGA Tour-supported charities.

Next week the Golf Channel will dedicate 14 hours of programming to what it is calling “Greatest Golf Moments Week,” a look back at the year in golf.... Included in Lifetime’s taped NHK Trophy figure skating coverage Sunday at 10 a.m. will be a documentary on the judging controversy at this year’s Winter Olympics.... Fox Sports Net has dispatched Carolyn Hughes and Petros Papadakis to New York to cover Carson Palmer’s bid to win the Heisman Trophy.

In Closing

Lisa Guerrero, you can’t top this. Fox Sports Net’s Lisa Dergan is on the cover of Stuff magazine, posing in a bikini. The photos inside are more revealing. And, no, Dergan, a former Playboy playmate, is not to be mistaken for a serious journalist.