Second-Screen Sports Options Circumventing TV Rights Pacts

NBCUniversal has committed $4.38 billion to broadcast the next four Olympics. Could ESPN steal those rights by hardly spending a dime? Not a chance. But ESPN has every right to go after the Olympics and every other major sporting event via its second-screen companion viewing apps like the popular GameCast. In fact, as social TV continues to explode, it’s opened up the next battleground in the sports media world, where those exorbitant broadcast rights fees don’t guarantee anything.

“We want to see ESPN as second screen for all sports,” said Eric Johnson, evp of multimedia sales at ESPN. “We know we have a lot of companion [mobile] usage, even when it’s not our event. We want to take co-viewing to the next level.” There’s no doubt that more and more sports fans are sitting in front of the tube with iPads or iPhones in hand—some just texting or tweeting, while others are consuming complementary content via apps or engaging with mini sports fan social nets.