Murdoch's Big Game

[Gregg Lengling]

It's time to watch the big game - Super Bowl XXXVIII.

And while coverage of the event is coming from Viacom's CBS, those tied to football and its TV coverage must have Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. stuck in the back of their heads. After all, his FOX network delivers Sunday games of the league and his new prize - DirecTV - has a lock on NFL Sunday Ticket. At the moment, DirecTV is the only pay-TV platform delivering out-of-market NFL games to viewers.

And maybe they're wondering what could happen in 2005, when rights to the NFL's cable and broadcast contracts come up for renewal.

The Jan. 19 issue of BusinessWeek - featuring Murdoch and his expanding global business - gave a hint of what could occur next year. Some of Murdoch's rivals predicted in the article the media giant "may just go for the battering ram - snatching away the Sunday night cable package by outbidding ESPN and putting it on rival Fox Sports Network."

BusinessWeek also reported that News Corp. President Peter Chernin has been meeting with NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue and the league's top media exec, Steve Bornstein, on how Fox and News Corp. can work more closely with the NFL.

It may not be possible to gain an exclusive lock on NFL coverage, but Murdoch and News Corp. understand how important sports content is to FOX and DirecTV. And they may do anything it takes to keep the NFL coverage they have now and significantly add to the slate of games they deliver every weekend.

To get an idea of the possibilities, all one needs to do is look to the United Kingdom and British Sky Broadcasting, the satellite TV company controlled by News Corp.

For years, Sky has had a lock on coverage of Premier League soccer matches. The satellite TV platform and News Corp. have withstood antitrust probes into contracts for carriage of the exclusive sports content. Yet late last year Sky relinquished some of the games to broadcasters.

However, the damage may have already been done to Sky's competitors. BSkyB has 7 million customers, making it by far the largest pay-TV platform in the United Kingdom. It has control of about 30 percent of U.K. TV households, which roughly number 25 million.

And - as the BusinessWeek article pointed out - it took Murdoch's BSkyB little time to crush its cable rivals.