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Sports Biz
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CNBC.com |
Whatever happens from here on out, there will be nothing greater than the exclusive rights to this Saturday night's Giants-Patriots game, with the Pats' potentially perfect regular season on the line. And today, the NFL agreed to let the game be simulcast on NBC and CBS.
(NBC TV is a unit of CNBC's parent, NBC Universal.)
The day the NFL owners gave their fledgling cable network eight games a year, they were acknowledging that there was no chance this start-up would make it without the ultimate playing card -- games that were exclusive outside of the team's local markets.
And this year, the NFL Network got two games that were absolute gems: A good late-season game of those one-loss titans, the Packers and the Cowboys -- and now this game.
While I love the fact that the NFL did this -- it's a great public relations move and it probably was necessary -- it also is this: An admission that even this game wasn't going to make those cable carriers holding out put the NFL Network on extended basic, instead of on an a la carte package.
With the Giants-Pats game out of the way, those negotiations will go absolutely nowhere until there's pressure to show certain games next year. But the bottom line -- and the sad fact for the network and its owners -- is that there will never be another game bigger than this Saturday.
Questions? Comments?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes