Former ESPN executive John Skipper said the NFL should make the Super Bowl a pay-per-view event to generate more revenue. Skipper and Dan Le Batard discussed the idea on a podcast this past week.
It’s not the first time Skipper has spoken of this idea, but he added some interesting details to it this time.
“If you just assume that half of the people watched would still figure out a way to watch if it costs $200-$250 for a household, you’re just going to have more of what David said, bigger parties,” Skipper said. “I don’t know how many households, I assume it’s half the households who watched; if it was only a quarter of them are willing to pay $20 to have a party at their house, it would still get you into the billions of dollars for a single game.
$250 for a football game? Might need to have some girls from Legends performing at halftime at that price.
I’m sure the NFL would still make a ton of money if they charged $250 to watch the Super Bowl. But that’s a lot of cash to a lot of people. I’m a big football fan like many of you. I wouldn’t pay $250 myself to watch one game between two teams I really don’t care about.
Now $20, that’s easier for more people to fork over.
Will the NFL Do It?
Skipper is certainly not the first person to have this idea. Shit, I’ve thought about this before. The NFL would make a killing if they made people pay $20 to watch the big game. Maybe they’d finally pay their halftime act then, too!
I don’t believe the NFL should do this. Every other football game is free on cable television. Making one of them pay-to-watch is kind of lame.
But there is next to no chance the NFL doesn’t make this a thing at some point. They are missing out on making potentially hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars. They will not let that continue forever.
The number of households that watch the game would certainly go down if we are charged to watch it. But as the old saying goes, money over everything.