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Sirius Inks Million-Dollar NFL Deal

sperry

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Sirius Inks Million-Dollar NFL Deal

The National Football League announced a seven-year agreement for Sirius to broadcast all NFL games live nationwide and for the company to become the official satellite radio partner of the league.

Beginning with the NFL's 2004 season, Sirius will carry the entire NFL regular season as well as select pre-season contests and playoff games. Sirius said it will offer all of the NFL programming at no additional cost to subscribers.

Sirius CEO Joe Clayton said the seven-year deal will cost Sirius $188 million in cash and $32 million in restricted stock, plus additional considerations in the future.

The game streams that will be available on Sirius will consist of local broadcasts, delivered via the satellite radio service in their entirety. NFL executives said local signals of games delivered via satellite radio will be a plus for out-of-market fans as well as local listeners.

As part of the agreement, Sirius will create "The NFL Radio Network," an around-the-clock stream of NFL content for its subscribers. The radio channel will provide news, features and a range of other programming highlighting the NFL and its teams. The NFL Radio Network will also include programs from The NFL Network television channel.

The owners of NFL-member clubs also have approved the agreement between the NFL and Sirius.

XM: Considered NFL, But Skipped Deal

XM Satellite Radio had explored a deal with the NFL to carry games, but skipped on the package.

"Sometimes the best deals are the ones you don't do," said XM's Chance Patterson.

Patterson said the company had looked at a deal to carry NFL games. "But given that it's a very expensive package, and given that it's a limited amount of games over a limited amount of time," XM decided not to pursue satellite radio coverage of the NFL, he said.

Also factoring into XM's decision was the vast amount of radio coverage at the local level the NFL already has, and that football "is really a TV sport," Patterson said. Also, XM hasn't seen much of an impact with Sirius' coverage of the NBA and NHL in the marketplace, he said.

Patterson also said XM likes the position it has in the market, with more than 1 million customers. The company will reveal its 2004 content lineup - along with 2004 subscriber and financial efforts - at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

SkyReport, 12-16-03
 
I'm glad that Siri made the deal; I just hope that it pays off for them in the long run. I honestly hate to see XM's success, considering that they rode Siri coat tail all the way to the bank. Siri certainly deserves a lucky break, since they pioneered the sat radio idea in the first place. I will give XM credit for their marketing and the choices that they make in partners, ie Sony, Pioneer, Alpine and so on. Siri got stuck with Panasonic (nothing to be ashamed of there, they have a good market) and Kenwood.
 
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