Monday Night Football is the premier property in sports television. All the players get up for it. All the teams watch. It's a national showcase. To be able to transition it to ESPN is an honor. |
Obviously we're celebrating a 36-year legacy on ABC and the end of an era but we're also celebrating the start of a new era with this great property on ESPN. It's a bit of mixed emotions. |
Obviously we're celebrating a 36-year legacy on ABC and the end of an era but we're also celebrating the start of a new era with this great property on ESPN. It's a bit of mixed emotions. |
Obviously we're celebrating a 36-year legacy on ABC and the end of an era, but we're also celebrating the start of a new era with this great property on ESPN. It's a bit of mixed emotions. |
Retaining 'Monday Night Football' simply did not make smart financial sense for ABC. We could not reconcile the fees against the revenue. ... We love football at ABC. It's been a love affair for 36 years. It will go down in the history of sports television, being created on ABC and with this magnificent run. But at this point, given the success we're having with our entertainment product and the financials, we deemed that this was the proper move for us. ... We're not looking back. |
The biggest challenge is that the game is at the conclusion of a lot of football games on Sunday. |
The future of our national pastime, the great national pastime, is clearly represented in these agreements. |
This caps a series of comprehensive 'new world' agreements, clearly demonstrating that ESPN and Major League Baseball share the same vision - to serve fans through the highest quality content and cutting edge technology. Today, we have significantly enhanced the value of our summer cornerstone television programming with increased team appearances on Sunday nights, exclusive blackout lift rights on Monday nights and more game and studio flexibility to showcase the great sport of baseball like no other media company. |
This is a big day for our company. An expanded base in Los Angeles will help fuel our overall long-term growth. |
This telethon, the NFL, our people, our media assets across Disney -- are all coming together to rebuild for those who have lost so much. It's great football, and more important, it's helping people. |
We are very well positioned to further grow NASCAR. |
We do not have the exclusive national cable rights here. |
We have tremendous confidence in the ability of the league and players association to deal effectively with this issue, and it appears they are. |
We haven't firmed up precisely how and when we're going to do that. |
We worked very hard to build and sustain our relationship with the league and would have liked to continue. However, given the prolonged work stoppage and the league's TV ratings history, no financial model even remotely supports the contract terms offered. We wish the NHL all the best. |