NFL fans have offered a reaction to suggestions pointing to the Super Bowl becoming a pay-per-view event.
The Super Bowl is the most watched television event in the United States and it’s broadcast to homes at no extra cost to viewers. However, former ESPN president John Skipper has floated the idea with the assertion that the league would stand to reap major profits should their curtain closer move from live TV to PPV.
“I assume that there are some number of people that’s the only game they watched the entire year, and they don’t want to be left out,” Skipper said during an appearance on Dan Le batard’s The Big Suey.
Super Bowl 57 was the most-watched Super Bowl in the last six years, with over 113 million viewers tuning in. The way Skipper sees it, many people would pay to watch the game just so they wouldn’t be left out.
“That’s a pretty great place to be for a live event,” he continued. “Fifty percent of the country does not want to be left out. It leads me to a slightly different discussion; if half the country is watching your game and they’re watching it for free, how many of those people would pay a big sum of money to watch the game?”
The ex-ESPN boss figures the NFL could still make billions if they charged households as low as $20 for Super Bowl access.
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.
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, and that is the single best way I can think of for the NFL to increase their annual revenue take for their clubs, is to make the Super Bowl a pay-per-view event.
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Fans have reacted to Skipper’s comments and, by the looks of things, they aren’t up for paying to watch a game they reckon they would be able to watch for free anyway.
We will never know how well or how badly this will work out for the NFL unless they actually opt to go in that direction. But, for now, it doesn’t seem like a PPV Super Bowl would be a big hit among fans.
