• by Wayne Friedman , March 8, 2011

A senior Walt Disney executive is not that concerned if the National Football League gets delayed for the upcoming season due to a lockout by the owners. The lack of panic is a result of a still-strong TV ad marketplace. 

"If advertisers want to reach the demographic that the NFL is reaching, especially in an economy that is on its way back ... it's going to be sports, and these sports are going to be carried by ESPN," said Jay Rasulo, CFO of Walt Disney, speaking at the Credit Suisse Global Media and Communications conference.

In ESPN's favor, according to analysts, is that the TV market -- and in particular the sports TV market -- is still a very hot commodity, especially in recent scatter markets.

National television pricing has skyrocketed, with high double-digit percent increases in CPMs. One media executive believes ESPN's array of weekend college football games could act as a temporary stop gap if the start of the season is delayed by a few weeks, or even a month.

ESPN would continue to pay fees to the league even if there are no games, says Rasulo. But another executive has said ESPN would get some recourse from these fees after NFL games resume. A federal judge ruled recently the NFL acted in bad faith when it renegotiated its television deals.

Most broadcast networks sell around 60 thirty-second commercial units in a given NFL game; ESPN, due to its deals with local cable operators, sells around 48 units.

According to media research surveys, Fox pulls in $975 million per year from its NFC Sunday afternoon games; NBC gets $850 million for "Sunday Night Football"; CBS' Sunday afternoon AFC conference games pulls about the same number. ESPN's "Monday Night Football" -- because of its lower units in a game for sale -- pulls in around $200 million.