NFL Re-Ups ESPN

With the NFL season kicking off tonight, the league and ESPN have signed an eight-year extension to their media rights agreement that is worth $1.8B per year, which according to the Sports Business Journal is a 63% increase over the average price of its current deal.

The extension was first announced back in January but a formal announcement of the deal will likely come today. The deal will keep Monday Night Football on ESPN through the 2021 season and it also gives ESPN a wide array of digital rights that will allow the network to stream live games via broadband and tablets, as part of the cable industry’s “TV Everywhere” initiative.

SBJ reports that in the new deal, ESPN will not get any playoff games. The contract allows for ESPN to carry a Wild Card playoff game at some point, but it is not set in stone. Neither ESPN nor ABC will be part of the Super Bowl rotation either.

However, a key aspect to the deal for ESPN is that it will receive additional highlight rights, which the network will use to launch several new NFL-themed studio shows.

Earlier this week, ESPN announced programming changes that moved shows like “Jim Rome Is Burning” from ESPN to ESPN2, which will free up space for ESPN to launch new shows, including one starring Pro Football Hall of Famer Jerry Rice and another co-hosted by Suzy Kolber and Chris Mortensen.