Report: Sports Makes Up Half Of All Cable Bills
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – ESPN recently announced it would become the exclusive home of the new college football playoff for reportedly close to $500 million. Between that deal and other television rights deals, sports are hitting an all-time in costs to networks and cable providers.
Unfortunately, that means that networks and cable providers are passing the increased costs down to customers.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the average household is spending $90 a month for cable or satellite television and roughly half of that amount pays for spots channels bundled into most services.
The bad news keeps coming for consumers as well as the L.A. Times reported that monthly cable and satellite bills are expected to rise by an average of 40 percent over the next three years thanks to rising costs.
It's not just ESPN that is driving the costs associated with sports programming. Regional networks have been cutting deals with teams in recent years and are helping explode costs. From the Big Ten Network to the looming SEC Network and the Fox Sports Net's, billions are being spent on sports.
For example, according to the Times, the Los Angeles Lakers was paid $3 billion for a long term deal with Time Warner Cable. Combined with a proposed $6 billion by Fox Sports for the L.A. Dodgers rights, and the Times reported the two deals could add more than $10 a month to all pay-TV bills in the area, the Times reported.
Cable and broadcast channels that have sports programming are starting to squeeze higher subscriber fees, including ESPN getting more than $5 a month for each subscriber, according to the Times.
Unfortunately for consumers, the rights fees will likely keep rising until the prices reach a breaking point where customers will simply no longer pay the increased costs for the networks.
