The week before the NFL Draft, John Ourand reported in his newsletter for Puck that ESPN’s contract to air the draft only runs through next year. Ourand noted that ESPN is expected to renew, and the implication I’ve gotten (not having read more than Awful Announcing’s write-up) was that he was merely noting that the NFL and ESPN were getting together to work on such a renewal, but I think most people could be forgiven for assuming from the mention of the draft when ESPN announced its most recent comprehensive agreement with the league in 2021 that ESPN had secured rights to the draft for the duration of the deal, and I’m inclined to think that Ourand would not have reported on this if some party didn’t want to influence the negotiations somehow, implying that a renewal might not be a formality, nor do I think the NFL would have awarded ESPN rights to the draft only through 2025 if they didn’t intend on seriously considering shaking up the status quo of the draft.
Prior to signing its most recent deals with its media partners, there was discussion of the notion that the league wanted the draft to be covered like the presidential election, with coverage on every network. Towards that end, the league had Fox, then preparing to start its first season airing Thursday Night Football, simulcast NFL Network’s coverage of the first two days of the 2018 Draft, with ESPN then agreeing to simulcast the third day’s coverage on ABC; from 2019 onwards, ABC has aired a separate production of the first two nights before simulcasting ESPN’s coverage on Day 3. Fox failing to even win the night against entertainment programming on the other broadcast networks seemed to make the notion of “presidential-election-style” coverage seem laughable, especially for CBS, but that might not be the only way to shake up draft coverage.
One approach could be to rotate exclusive, or at least primary, draft coverage across the broadcast networks; ABC/ESPN airing the 2025 draft would fit with rotating the draft on a two-year offset from the Super Bowl rotation, so each network gets either the draft or the Super Bowl every other year. The downside to this, though, is that the experts at ESPN and NFL Network have incentive to cover and assess every year’s slate of prospects to prepare for each year’s draft broadcast; having experts brought in to cover the draft only once every four years skews the incentives and could skew the coverage. On the other hand, having only a single network air the draft means you don’t have to synchronize commercial breaks across two networks and each prospect to take the stage only needs to be interviewed once, meaning you can reduce the lag between a pick coming in and being announced, reducing the opportunity and incentive for pick-tipping. (Also, rumors of the NFL taking a stake in ESPN, and ESPN taking over management of NFL Network, could reduce NFLN’s incentive to offer its own draft coverage, making consolidation on a single network easier.) Shaking up the draft could also be as simple as allowing Amazon to add their own coverage to the proceedings.
Besides that, circumstances in the television industry have changed substantially since 2018, with ratings for non-live primetime programming continuing to decline, accelerated by the change in viewing habits during the pandemic, and with The Big Bang Theory ending and Young Sheldon preparing to do the same, depriving CBS of its most popular Thursday programming. As it increasingly becomes the case that anything on a linear network that’s not a live event is just filler between live events, perhaps the notion of “presidential-election-style” coverage becomes more viable again – or at least, it’s worth the league talking to its partners on whether they want to cover the draft and how. My impression after 2018 and 2019 was that there wasn’t any reason for the league to move away from the status quo in place since then, but has presidential-election-style coverage become more viable, and if the league did decide to offer one network exclusive draft rights, how interested might each network, especially CBS, be?
Day 1: ABC fairly handily beat all comers in the 18-49 demo, so a version of the status quo should work for NBC and Fox. CBS might be a different story, though, if they’re assessing things using total viewers; both Young Sheldon and Ghosts had at least 1.5 million more total viewers than ABC had for the entire night, and Ghosts actually slightly bested Young Sheldon in the demo, so the end of Young Sheldon might not depress its ratings as much as you might think. (Both shows lost at least 100,000 viewers from the previous week, but Ghosts still topped Young Sheldon in the demo the previous week.) Of course those shows air in the 8 PM ET hour, against the most popular part of the draft, but CBS bested ABC in those particular time slots as well.
The league boasted 12.1 million total average viewers; for “presidential election-style” coverage, an average of 3 million would beat what ABC and Fox draw for a typical Thursday, but NBC aired reruns of their Law and Order shows against the draft on Thursday night, and the original show and Special Victims Unit drew over 4 million the previous week with new episodes. On the other hand, the combined demo ratings across ABC, ESPN, and NFL Network were 3.53, which would average out to .88 per network; no program drew a demo rating higher than .50 the previous week. This of course assumes no coverage on ESPN or NFL Network, but it’s possible presidential-election coverage would be worth it for every network in the demo even with competition from cable.
On night 1, exclusive coverage is clearly worth it for every network, but CBS would be taking a step down in total viewers with the status quo (pending the numbers for Ghosts after Young Sheldon ends) and both CBS and NBC could be doing so with presidential-election-style coverage. But viewership for scripted programming on broadcast in the 18-49 demo has dried up so much that if CBS and NBC cared more about demo ratings than total viewers, presidential-election-style coverage may well be worth it even with competition from ESPN, NFL Network, and perhaps even Amazon. But what about the rest of the draft?
Day 2: All three of CBS’ shows fairly handily beat ABC in total viewers, as did Dateline NBC, though ABC beat all comers in the demo. Fox is tough to assess, as SmackDown came very close to ABC in the demo and a little over half a million short in total viewers, but of course SmackDown is moving to USA this fall.
Across ABC, ESPN2, and NFL Network, Night 2 drew 5.05 million viewers and a 1.37 demo rating; CBS’ Fire Country and Blue Bloods alone drew more total viewers, so even with exclusivity CBS might tap out of the draft after the first round, if they prioritize total viewers. The .34 average demo rating per network under a presidential-election-style model is only .01 more than what Fire Country drew, so if CBS couldn’t draw a substantial audience to the draft in a presidential-election-style setting they might tap out after the first round even valuing demo ratings first and foremost. For that matter, ABC drew a .31 demo rating for Shark Tank the previous week, so they might decide to only show the first round and let ESPN handle coverage of the second night.
The one caveat here is that, with no one left in the green room, no prominent quarterbacks falling out of the first round, and ESPN’s coverage airing entirely on ESPN2 with no portion on ESPN prior to NBA playoff coverage, Night 2 coverage posted its lowest figures in over a decade, so things might look better under different circumstances.
Day 3: ABC did beat its head-to-head non-NBA competition in both total viewers and the demo, with the caveat that baseball on Fox wasn’t that far behind in either measure going up against the later rounds of the draft. But given the choice between baseball in the late afternoon and the UFL in primetime, or exclusive or status-quo coverage of the draft in the afternoon and baseball in primetime, I suspect Fox would take the latter.
Across all three networks the draft drew just under 3 million viewers, including 992,000 viewers in the demo. I don’t think presidential-election-style coverage would ever work for Day 3 considering the various other sports commitments the other networks have, especially with regards to golf whose weekend rounds are always on broadcast outside football season, but I think all three other networks would have reason for skepticism regardless. The UFL might be a better investment in the afternoon than the draft for Fox based on total viewers (and the gap for golf on CBS was significantly bigger), while Premier League soccer on NBC was only slightly worse in the demo than the per-network average presidential-election-style coverage might be expected to draw. As with Friday, Saturday’s coverage declined from previous years, so things might not be quite as bad as suggested here, but not as much as with Friday.
Where does the NFL go from here? Realistically, if the league opts to continue the status quo in terms of how the draft is divvied up, they’re probably also going to continue the status quo in terms of which networks it’s divvied up between, meaning ABC would remain the only broadcast network airing the draft. The league would also find a receptive audience for rotating exclusive draft coverage. What’s surprising, however, is that presidential-election-style coverage may be closer to being viable than I would have thought. It depends on how much CBS and other networks would be willing to alienate much of their audience for the sake of draft coverage that would be more popular with the 18-49 demo, and for the moment it would be restricted to Thursday only, at least for CBS, but there is certainly a scenario where the networks would be willing to take the plunge. I don’t know if that would be the best approach for the NFL to take; I could see CBS, Fox, and NBC have very perfunctory coverage if they’re there for only one night, which might drive the numbers lower than CBS and NBC would like. But all four networks would at least be paying attention if the NFL came to them with the prospect of sharing coverage of the first night of the draft, which is a far sight better than was the case five years ago.