• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, January 6, 2012

Top sports leagues have an extraordinary business model going, notably the NFL. How many other businesses can charge increasingly higher fees to customers, who are content just to break even – even stomach a loss?

Here’s more: those customers aren’t just willing to commit for a couple of years in case their economics change, but well into the 2020s. Recent NFL deals with Fox, CBS, ESPN and NBC run into the next decade, as do ones with the Olympics, NHL and SEC.

The 10-year rights deal with allowances for multi-platform distribution is becoming the norm in sports.

Programmers are pretty sure that even with the vagaries of the ad market, fuzzy math with affiliate and retransmission-consent fees will make the deals worth it.

But here’s another reason: by securing perhaps the most reliably strong content around -- the NFL and live sports -- they are ensuring their long-term leadership. Google might be able to do a lot of things, but forays into programming will be limited. The same goes for other technology or digital companies looking to establish themselves as premium content outlets.

If a few years ago, questions mounted about whether the entrenched media behemoths would remain at the top over the long term, sports programming provides the base to ensure it. If hit programming runs dry, the NFL more than keeps a network in the game, allowing time for a turnaround (look at NBC recently).

(By the way, the NFL might have made off better by inking shorter deals, allowing it to gauge whether a new entity would emerge with billions of dollars to spend and drive prices up.)

If sports into the 2020s isn’t enough to quiet naysayers about the continued leadership of traditional TV programmers, then a new Nielsen report on consumer media behavior should.

There is barely anything there to discourage network executives. Americans just love TV.

There are about 115 million TV homes and close to a third have four or more TV sets. Hard-to-reach 18-to-24 year-olds watch an average of 24 hours of TV a week (older age groups increasingly more). 

Of course, 18-to-24 year-olds are skipping commercials like crazy, right? Not according to Nielsen. Only about 6% of their viewing on average is done in time-shifted mode.

What about more people watching TV on other devices? Surely that will hurt a Fox or CBS. Well, they seem well-positioned there.

Nielsen says that the top-five mobile channels (by unique visitors) are YouTube, Fox, ABC, Comedy Central and CBS. Also, among video sites where users spend the most time watching, Netflix is at the top by a long shot.

These days, Netflix is willing to pay networks enough for their content to help cushion the blow from the NFL bills.