Sports Leagues Not On TV: What's The Real Message Being Sent To Consumers?

The NFL pulls around $8 billion in overall revenue per year; Major League Baseball, around $7 billion; and the NBA, $4 billion. Television revenues are a hefty piece of that action. For example, the NFL pulls in 60% of its revenue from TV, around $4.5 billion. It's a balancing act for networks, currently. Journalistically, they have to cover the story of these business snafus in a fair and responsible way. For the most part, viewers only want to know that they'll have football and basketball to watch -- even though virtually all sports consumers are aware athletes and owners are multmillionaires. Sports leagues have seen this problem before -- damaged viewer perceptions in the years immediately after operations resume -- after a canceled NHL season some years ago, and a Major League Baseball season before that in the 1990s. Leagues hope the marketing theme of "millionaires fighting with one another" isn't the only long lasting message to remain when sports leagues get back to the action. But TV networks might have no choice than to back that message.