The NFL knows how to make ends meet. That may not matter for NFL Media.
Ryan Glasspiegel of the New York Post reports that the NFL’s in-house media conglomerate will be making major cost cuts.
NFL Media consists of NFL Network, NFL.com, NFL Films, and NFL RedZone. The league is conducting a “strategic review,” which is a fancy term for, “Who should we keep, and who should we let go?”
“Given this period of broader economic uncertainty, it’s fair to say the NFL’s media group is taking an extra step or two to make sure all costs and expenditures make sense,” an unnamed source familiar with the matter told Glasspiegel.
Many will be confused by any layoffs or other reductions in operations, given that the NFL is and will continue to be flush with cash. But revenue is one thing; profit is another. Companies are always looking to see if they can do things cheaper, especially if one area of the business isn’t generating the same amount of money as another.
For the NFL, the games make the rain. The media outlet has been, more often than not, a drag on the bottom line. NFL Network, which launched 20 years ago in November, has never really become what the league expected it to be. The fact that the league has been unable to find some other company to take on a piece of NFL Media despite months of trying underscores that, while the NFL knows how to make plenty of money by staging football games, it has struggled to make sufficient money through the coverage of its on-field product.