YouSaid · the spoken record

Brian Rolapp

lines on the record: 56
first: 2015-12-10
most recent: 2015-12-10
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Well, I mean, I think there's always been an underlying economic model that we have to figure out. It's worked well for us to be able to have an ad supported broad reach sport. And I think if we had our druthers, that's what we would do. I think there's a lot of changes in the model. I think the good news is we've, where it made sense have tried to use technology and different business models to get fans the games they want. So Sunday Ticket with the out of market package has been something that all fans really want to see all the games, but if they want to, they can pay direct TV and get it. What's the next iteration of that model we'll have to figure out? But I think we've always prided ourselves on being able to making sure that NFL football, at least your team, your home team is as broadly accessible as possible and will continue to do that.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Let's do one more feature facing questions. So, you said earlier, look, free TV has been a big deal to us. If we wanted to maximize the amount of money, we would have sold the rights to cable TV a long time ago. Are you committed to making these games, whether or not they're delivered over the Internet or any other medium, free in the future, or at some point, would this be something you've got to pay someone to see these things?”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Don't know. I think it all depends on what these state attorney generals and the courts decide. And I think it all depends if these companies have the financial wherewithal to spend that much money. I mean, the thing that was striking to me, and I don't know much about the economics of the business. I haven't studied it. I know enough to be dangerous, but they were spending a lot of money. And I don't know if their customer acquisition cost really squared with the revenue they're generating. There's somewhere that's a plane that does that. But that's for them to answer. But I think it will all depend on where some of this litigation in some of these state proceedings come out.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, we were cautious about it. And it's, I think, one of the reasons why the league we didn't make an investment, we didn't enter into a sponsorship agreement and give them marks and logos and intellectual property and all the things you do when you do a sponsorship agreement with these guys. But it was legal. It's been deemed as legal. And so our broadcasters took ads and there was no”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And when you saw that, just ridiculous explosion of ads. Keep using that same metaphor. This fall did you go, did you go, hey, hey, hey, this is not what we want on our product or on our product. Did you express concern either the networks that are selling the ads or fan duel and DraftKings who are buying the ads?”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's a mainstream idea. I think fantasy is something we like. It's something we're in the business. I think it's beneficial to the sport. I think, and we've been very clear about it, I think the Daily Fantasy, quite literally the jury is still out.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And there was even a debate, and you still see it now whether that's a sort of moral way or appropriate way to watch sports. Does it make sense to root for someone who's not your team because they're on your fantasy team? But it seems like it's a pretty mainstream idea at this point.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that's great for us. It just drives engagement. And you might be a Jets fan, and you'll watch the Jets, but you might have Andy Dalton as your starting quarterback. And so you really want to watch the Cincinnati game.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Look, I think we can go without missing a step to put to answer your question directly. Look, fantasy in general has been very good for the NFL. And I think it was interesting back in 1999 and around that time frame, again before I was at the league, but there was lots of conversations about is fantasy legal or is fantasy not. In the NFL specifically, was a little bit slower to get into it. We didn't launch a fantasy game until 2001, I think. And I think So it's not surprising to me that there's similar scrutiny on Daily Fantasy. But I would say fantasy is a general matter. It's been very good for the NFL. What started as your most avid fans, older guys passionate about NFL football, spending a tremendous amount of time on fantasy has grown into, we have more women and more kids playing. It is truly becoming a more accessible family of...”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, one thing that's changed about your sport and media around your sport for several years has been the rise of fantasy sport. And then this year was this explosion of daily fantasy, it's DraftKings and fan duel and it's ridiculous explosion of ads in the first month or so of the season. Everyone's making fun of it. They've pulled back. Now there's a real question about whether these things are going to survive legal challenges. Unlike other leagues, you guys haven't invested directly in this, but your teams have.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think both. I think our data will tell you that seven out of ten people who are watching the NFL game have a second screen open. And they're doing lots of things. I'm not naive to think they're all in NFL.com. They're not. They're tweeting. They're looking at Facebook. They're messaging their friends. They're on Facebook Messenger. They're doing a million things. And our view is that can enhance the engagement. And I think a lot of people here listening to your podcast, whether it's an NFL game or if it's the new episode of Walking Dead, when somebody tweets out what's going on, it reminds you it's on. Maybe you go watch it. Maybe less so for Walking Dead because you'll catch you'll DVR it or maybe you're catching up on Netflix on past seasons. But you know that Green Bay New England game is going to be over and now are you going to go see it? And so I think it actually is not only incremental consumption and incremental engagement, but it's also driving people to watch the telecast. And I think, again, my job is very simple. How do you grow consumption and how do you grow the economic pie? And I think when you start to do”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Look, 10 years ago, we did television deals in 2005, which was a big, big year for us, which was when NBC took Sunday night football and Monday night football went to ESPN. We shifted the chairs a little bit. But even then, the internet was fairly new. Video was really starting to grow, but not much. When you talk to some of those guys, they felt if you put highlights on the internet that it was going to hurt the rating, that less people were going to watch. And our view was it's only going to help. It's only going to promote. And we held back all the digital rights. And we initially deployed them on NFL.com, but as time went on and the world changed, we started to license them out. And the opposite has happened. We just talked about how our ratings are up. And I actually believe it's incremental consumption.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, without getting to the specifics of the deal, there's incremental value that's created for their platform, which that's what we do for our partners.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, man took care of that. And now we're in another transition where you don't have to wait for Sports Center or NFL total access on the NFL network at 8 o'clock to see the highlights. And that's going to happen regardless. And clearly the consumer wants to do that and you see some of these clips that show up on some of these platforms. And these platforms are so big and so massive. They're here to stay, obviously. It's not a new thought. So our view has been very much, well, we need to drive engagement on all those platforms. And especially if you're concerned in any business about driving a younger demo or different demos, you have to be there. And so we embrace them. It's been about getting the right model. We don't think our content should be given away for free. We never have. But we also think that our content can create value. And if you look at our deals with Twitter or Snapchat or some of these other players, we figured out a way to do that, which you.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, look, I think the days are over that we were over a long time ago that you stayed up to 11 o'clock news for the last 15 minutes or five minutes of the telecast. Right, ESPN.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you guys seem like, and we can talk about some of the back and forth, but it seems like for the most part, you said, yeah, we're going to get that clip to you for free. In theory, it means you can see all the highlights of a game in near real time without having to watch it on television. It seems like you've got, you've looked at what the potential channel conflict there and said, we're going to go for it.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That leads into one of the things I wanted to ask you about. Really interesting to watch me to watch you guys grapple with Facebook and Twitter in particular, but I think eventually Snapchat and some other platforms where it's now pretty reasonable for me as a consumer to expect that if Adrian Peters or himself an awesome run, that I'm going to be able to see it on my phone, not on NFL.com, but on Twitter or Facebook or some other platform. Maybe it's a legal version, maybe it's an illegal version, but it's going to show up to me really quickly.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I think the Grammy's and the Oscars aren't as strong as they were before. But it's just harder to do. Number one, there's always going to be value for that. Number two, regardless of if you're in traditional television or internet content distribution or whatever you're in. Content or topics or subjects that people feel passionately about, there's always a way to build a business around that. And I really, one of our parts, our job at the NFL is how do you stoke and keep that passion and keep that interest and keep that engagement high.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, but it doesn't mean no good to sort of overinflate sports. I mean, ultimately, if there is a media strategy or media companies who can't afford to pay for our product, nobody wins. So I'm not in the business of just talking up sports rights because that's going to make the value higher. That's not how the world works. I think you have to demonstrate value to your partners and put a product on the field and product on the screen that makes sense. What I do know is, as I said a little bit earlier, as we're talking. There's nothing left that I can see in any form of media that can aggregate audiences as effectively as live events or live sporting events. Right.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think if you are in the business of investing in these companies who are in the content distribution business, it's a very uncertain time in that there has been more change in the last few years than there has been in the previous 15. It really has. And it's going to continue to accelerate. Having said that, I don't subscribe to sports rights are a general matter overinflated or subscribe to ESPN as going away tomorrow. Look, I'm not a stockpicker and I won't tell you if the value.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, you're pointing out that your ratings year over year are up indicates you've got a pretty good product, pretty strong demand for it. On the other hand, there's this ongoing discussion right now about the value of sports overall. There's a lot of concern about ESPN, at least if you're at Disney. There's concern about ESPN because their numbers are going down, their subscriber numbers are going down. And what looked to be the safest bet in medias, which is like spend a lot of money on a lot of sports rights, you have them exclusively. Everyone has to pay you to watch them, even if they don't want to watch them, are going to have to pay because they got part of that bundle. That strategy no longer looks that rock solid. In fact, it looks like sports rights might be an anchor, sort of weighing down the value of some of these companies. Obviously you're in the sports rights business, so you're not going to agree with that theory. But do you understand sort of the concern if you're at Disney or if you're an investor trying to figure out what to make at Disney's dependence on sports routes?”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But if anyone who tells you what the future looks like, they're lying to you because they don't know. And so I think we're in this really interesting transition period of how you do how you do this. But I think what it's at the core of it and you're getting to is the days are gone where you can tell a consumer what content they can consume when they can consume it. Pay TVs enjoy this wonderful advantage where it was the only way to get multiple channels into the household. And with the advent of broadband and the growth in video combined with mobile explosion, consumers are taken aback on their terms and they're not going to settle for the Swiss cheese of rights, as you're pointing out. And so we're adapting, and so will everybody else. And I think the key will be how do you get it to fans in a way that's intuitive and how do you do it in a way that reaches as many fans as possible? And how do you do it in a way that makes economic sense?”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think it'll be short term. We don't know. But I think without projecting what this deal would be, I think you just need to look at the last deals we've done. It's a series of one-year deals for Thursday night football.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think a lot. I think anybody who is in the content business or the distribution business, and they're all figuring this out, I mean, we could spend 20 minutes talking about the windowing of television content across Hulu and across Apple, across all the different platforms. And one thing for sure is it's not the same for any one company or any one platform. And I think sports leagues in the NFL are no different. And we're in this really remarkable transition period in media, which is one reason, by the way, we're doing these short-term Thursday ideals. We're not locking Thursday up for the long term because if anybody said, hey, Brian, tell me what the world or ask anybody what the world looks like in five and six years. They have theories.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of course, you are. You're in the podcast business. But I think there is a way to how do you increase the value for the fan, increase the value for the NFL, increase the value for all partners involved. And I don't think they're mutually exclusive. And we're not opposed to having them streamed in ways that make sense on the broadcaster's own and operated platforms.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah. I don't know how much that played into it. I think at the end of the day, it games either good or it's bad. Because if you look at, we're up, I think, around six to eight percent. Over two years ago. So we're still growing. And I only bring that up to say when you compare that to the rest of television, it's defined gravity. And the amount of value that they're getting, not only from the programming itself, but the ability to promote other programming, the ability to drive retransmission consent in their cable affiliate deals. There is a value there that is real. And I think we're being paid fairly for that value.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a down ear for you guys. Yeah, there's a lot of reasons for that. If you remember our first handful of Sunday night games, I mean, the games were bad. I mean, the margin of victory was a statistical anomaly in some of our opening Thursday night football games were just bad. That margin of victory have come down to be what it normally is, which is around 10. And the ratings are right back up”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think you'd say that. But I also think you have to look at the value we create for the TV guys already. As we sit here now, I think roughly the numbers, our television ratings are up two or three percent year over year.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If I'm a traditional TV company, I'm paying you $600 million or more for the Thirty Night Games or any games, don't I say the digital component is I get to stream this stuff on my own platform. I don't want the TV rights going on CBS and the Internet rights going on Yahoo.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Potentially And I'll ask you, we've not decided that. Could be one, could be more. We don't know. And I think when we look at Thursday night football, we're talking to numerous people, both traditional media companies and some of the internet guys. And I think there will be heavy digital component of that. It's just a question of what the model will be and how we will do it. And literally, as we sit here today recording this podcast, we are thinking through it and talking to people. So we haven't made any decision.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This is what I tell you. I think over the top game worked for us well, the game we had on Yahoo, and I think we're very interested in continuing that for next year.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Look, money always helps, and there's a business to run, but at the same time, we always have the long term. Let's put it this way. If we were just chasing money when we'd make these major rights decisions, the mass majority of NFL football would have been on paid television years ago. The fact of the matter, it's not. The vast majority of it are on broadcast networks, numerous, free-to-air, which is still the best way to get reach, at least currently. And even the games we put on cable television, if it's the NFL network or ESPN, we put over-the-air in the local markets. So if you're watching the New England Green Bay game that we're talking about, and it's on ESPN. It will be on ESPN. But if you live in Green Bay and live in Boston, you will still get it free over the air. You don't have to have cable. And there's a reason for that.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Crazy idea. And the first he needed TV stations in every market and you needed programming. And in fact, he wasn't even on the air for a full prime time at that point. But the first thing, one of the first things he went out and did is convince the NFL to put the NFC package there. And he built the network off the back of the NFL, which is great. But I only bring up that story to say the owners were progressive enough to see. They will go out on a limb. Yeah.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, look, it's not my unilateral decision, obviously, to make that. There's 32 owners of this business, and I'm not one of them. And so they will ultimately make the decision. But I will say these owners are fairly progressive. I mean, what the owners understand is what you've pointed out is that NFL football has an ability to do something that is harder and harder to do every year, and that's to aggregate large amount of audiences. And it's powerful to build a sport, but it's also powerful to build a business of our partners. And so they're very interested in figuring out if we can do that for other people. I think when we, before my time, but when the NFL made the decision to put what was then the NFC package on Fox in the early 90s, when Wooper Murdoch had just started a broadcast network in this country, which was sort of unheard of.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it's also good for my podcast. But in the end, you do have to go back to the Jerry Joneses and the owners in the end are going to sign off on this. So even if you say, look, let's do it. Let's do it with Yahoo or Amazon or Google or some internet company you've never heard of before. You wouldn't do that. They might go, yeah, I don't want to deal with this. I want to work with CBS. I want to work with, I like Les MoonFez. Let's keep working with him.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and so I think the way it answers your question, I'm not trying to be cagey. I would say it all depends on our conversation with the tech companies which we're having.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I don't think I can. But I will say, you think about the interview with Peter, when I talked to Peter about that, we hadn't done it before. The biggest thing we've done on the internet, I think, had concurrence of, I don't know, 250,000 or something, which, again, in a certain moment in time was a big thing. We now had something like 3 million concurrence for a Buffalo-Jacksonville game on Yahoo. It had very, very high quality. I mean, that's the thing about that game. The quality of it, no matter what you watch, it was very good. Could we scale to 30, 20 million? I'm not sure, but I'm not rolling it out. And again, you're thirsty that you're going to...”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was reading an interview with Peter King for my 2014. You raised that same theoretical and said, no, it can't. Now you're saying we're not sure. I'm going to go on a limb here, and it sounds like if you're not sure in late December 2015, you're not going to sell an entire, you're not going to sell an all digital package. Digital only package in 2016.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think about the fact that if you take a Green Bay New England game at 425 on a Sunday, we'll probably get, it will peak at 30 million viewers. So think about that in an internet terms of 30 million concurrence. Can the Internet right now sustain 30 million concurrence consistently week in and week out at the high level of quality that every NFL fan expects? I think there's an open question about that.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think based on what we've seen, I think it could. But it's a question if we're ready to do that. The reality is we are in the reach business. One strength of the NFL has been our games have been widely available. And I think if you look at other sports properties, it's worked for them and they're in a little bit of a different business than we are. We only have 16 home games, or I'm sorry, 8 home games, 16 total games per team. broadcast all of our games on free over there television, even the ones on pay TV. At the end of the day, we have felt that reach is really served our sport well. Now reach is just more complicated. So our question is always, can the internet reach as many fans as it could on television? And I think the jury's out on that a little bit. If you think about broadband, you think about the penetration, you think about the quality of the game.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In the morning, early morning, Sunday morning, two low wattage teams, small market. It worked and we can get into those details. Do you think you could do that for an entire season in prime time? Would it technically work?”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's one of the reasons we did that, is that it's a question if the internet is ready for full-scale distribution of NFL football. We've talked about it for a long time. You and I talked about for a long time. But we've never really done it. And that was one of the reasons why on October 25th of this year we wanted to do it.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure. Look, and we, and as you know, we did a game for the first time this year exclusively over the internet. Buffalo, Jacksville game, which I know you were tuning into. I did? I”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Correct someone, an Apple, a Google, somewhere, could pay you guys enough or could convince you guys that they should broadcast those games instead of a broadcast network. Those things don't have to go to a broadcaster cable network.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I want to ask you about that, but let me ask you about just go back to the sale of these games. That'll happen early in 2016, right? That's the plan. And I love, because of the stuff I write about, I love the notion of an internet company coming and buying those rights, which is theoretically possible. Sure.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's this interest that goes well beyond the games that we're equally interested in growing. And so when we think about deploying these games or we think about making the NFL network stronger, we also think about how do we keep the NFL engaged or the NFL fan engaged beyond October”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Telling you that story because we've always felt about Thursday as our risk capital for lack of a better word where while most of our TV rights are locked up through 2021, Thursday was where we could experiment. Thursday is where we could drive our own assets. Thursday is where we could start testing models for the future. Scale business, right? I mean, you're a giant business, but it's hard to get much bigger than you already are, and all of a sudden it seems like out of thin air you're able to manufacture entire new night of television or new night of media. Yeah, I think that's right.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is the games became more popular as it seemed from a football standpoint that these teams could compete on a short week? And there was an egalitarian way to treat the teams. We expanded that package and we expanded to a full slate of games that helped the NFL network. But after we did that and played a couple years, we said, you know what? Thursday night football, we think when we watch the viewership grow, it could be something. But you seem to forget Monday Night Football is something that's ingrained in everybody's mindset, but Monday Night Football started 45 years ago. And 45 years ago, when you put football on a regular basis on primetime television, it was different. It was a crazy idea. It was a crazy idea. They wanted to burn us for witchcraft. It was never automatic. And so, you know, to condition a consumer and a fan for regular Thursday night, that's a process. And so our thought was, how do we make it bigger? And that led to our deal with CBS.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Three years old at that point. We were trying to build distribution. We were trying to make it a bigger thing. It's very important to us. And starting an A-Game package helped that. But really what it was is we had not played a full package of games or any really games on a regular basis on a short football week other than Thanksgiving. You play Sunday or you play Monday, then Thanksgiving comes. So we always felt that Thursday could be a football night. And so we wanted to start slow and make sure that was true. And so starting eight games and putting on our network seemed a good place to start. As the network got more distributed and as we figured out your own network, that's the NFL. NFL network, which you guys literally own. We literally own.”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think the conventional wisdom is one of the traditional TV networks is going to buy that. Is that what you think as well? Well, yeah, I think most of our television rights are locked up through the 2020 or 2021 season. And that's a source of strength for us, economic and otherwise. But Thursday night football, we've always treated differently. Thursday night football. And this is a new thing. It didn't exist until a few years ago. Yeah, it started in 2006. It started as an eight-game package on the NFL network. The NFL network was...”
2015-12-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Brian Rolapp, NFL Media Czar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT