NBC Lands NASCAR

Some good details on what went into NBC landing NASCAR rights away from ESPN and Turner.

It should be noted that if ESPN did bid for the rights then according to the article NASCAR would have been looking for a 30 percent bump over the $270 million per year they are paying currently. That would have been $351 million per year or $3.5 billion over the 10-year life of the new contract. NBC will be paying $4.4 billion. What will NBC be getting for that extra $89 million per year?

Well for starters they also get the 6 races per year that Turner was carrying. You could look at it that NBC payed just $15 million per race per year for those races which isn't a bad deal but maybe more important is all the extra stuff that was included in the deal by NASCAR. NBC will be getting the following programming - most of which I expect will be broadcast on the NBC Sports Network:

- NASCAR practice and qualifying sessions
- The K and N Series
- The Whelen Modified Tour
- The Toyota (Mexico) Series
- The Hall of Fame Induction ceremony
- The end of year awards banquets

That's a lot of programming for the NBC Sports Network. When you couple that programming at night with NHL hockey games plus the Dan Patrick Show in the morning - all of a sudden the NBC Sports Network becomes a very attractive channel for the average sports fan (especially any with even cursory NASCAR or NHL interests).

This was a good deal for NBC and positions the NBC Sports Network channel very well in case a la carte programming becomes a reality.

Google Fiber's Missing Channels

I've seen a number of articles about Google Fiber in Kansas City commenting on the channels their TV package seems to be missing. What I have not seen is a good explanation of why those specific channels seem to be excluded from the line-up.

I think I can explain. The noticeable missing content seems to be from ABC/Disney (including the ESPN channels), Turner (TBS, TNT, CNN, etc) and HBO. What these three companies have in common is they traditionally do not allow their content to be transported via fiber. If Google wanted to add the channels by pulling them down via satellite then those channels would probably already be secured. But the name of the company is Google Fiber not Google Satellite.

In my opinion this has little to do with the cost of the content - consider that HBO is premium content that only the subscribers who want it would be paying for it. This has to do with business models - both Google's and the content providers.  How subscribers access over the top portals like HBO Go or ESPN3 is probably one of the key sticking points. I'm also guessing that none of the three content providers are very excited about re-doing any existing most-favored agreements to satisfy Google.

It will be interesting to see how this is resolved.