• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 6 hours ago

If the NFL is to have 10% ownership of ESPN, does that mean the ESPN universe of content platforms will have to increase the attention they pay to NFL football by 10%?

And what about ESPN’s coverage generally of the NFL? Does the NFL’s ownership stake mean it will have a say in how the NFL is talked about during the games ESPN airs and in its sports news shows such as “SportsCenter”?

A 10% stake means ESPN will still be 90% controlled by Disney. But The Wall Street Journal estimated on Wednesday that the NFL’s 10% stake could have cost the league between $2.5 billion and $3 billion, which is no small investment.

These questions arise in the wake of the news that Disney and the NFL have entered into a new kind of partnership in which the NFL gets a 10% stake in ESPN -- a foot in the door, you might say -- and Disney will “control” the league’s flagship NFL Network.

All of this comes as Disney is preparing to launch its new ESPN streaming service on August 21, the Journal noted.

But wait, there’s more. The NFL has made a similar deal with Skydance Media in advance of the closing of its merger with Paramount Global -- expected this week -- under which the NFL will have an ownership stake in CBS, whose CBS Sports airs NFL AFC games.

So now, just buying the rights to NFL games is becoming passé, as the NFL and the TV companies that hold rights to NFL games form partnerships that go a step or two beyond the rights deals.

When considering the value of major-league sports rights for the networks that can afford to buy them, the NFL is always positioned as the gold standard. The rights cost billions and earn billions too.

But what of the other sports such as the NBA, Major League Baseball and even the NHL?

Will these leagues seek to become more intertwined with the companies that air their games by obtaining equity stakes in them?

The answer to that question is likely yes. This new Disney-NFL partnership seems like a harbinger of things to come.