Fox Sports Chairman David Hill brought up an interesting notion at the NCTA Convention Wednesday in Boston.
From the Hollywood Reporter:
Hill, the Australian-born visionary who has revolutionized the technology of American sports with everything from the scoreboard box on the screen to new ways to cover the drama of baseball, said “the next big development for all of us is the second-screen experience. I don’t believe that has been explored in terms of potential as it should be. If you look at multi-tasking that is going on, a valid second screen experience (people watching a second screen in addition to the primary screen) – which could be American Idol – is going to be a huge development down the road.”
David, I really don’t need a second screen if it’s going to be used to watch American Idol. And by the way, whatever happened to Picture-in-Picture? Wasn’t that a second screen experience?
Bottom line: Nobody knows for sure what how we’re going to be watching sports in 2025. The execs just know we’re going to be watching, and paying to watch.
On the subject of right fees, there was this passage:
No sports discussion would be complete without some worrying about the rising cost of sports rights. At a panel discussion at the NCTA this week, a Wall Street analyst worried that rights fees were going to put a squeeze on cable to the point it could interfere with their ability to do other things. The Wednesday panelists did not disagree that rights are rising and expensive, but the attitude seemed to be that it is an inevitable part of the value of sports on TV.
“Anybody who thinks they can figure out what rights are going to be worth in 2026 doesn’t really know,” said (ESPN President) Skipper, referring to a recent news story about the sale of some sports rights far into the future. “What we will make a bet on is that the value of sports rights are going to continue to appreciate. We would love it if sports rights would come down, but sports rights are going up because the value of sports rights are going up.”
Hill recalled a CBS executive who in 1977 said sports rights had gone as high as it was possible for them to go and they would not go any higher. What he did not recognize, said Hill, is that “sports rights are the purest example of supply and demand.”