New Thursday night package could earn NFL $700 million a year

It looks like the NFL isn’t planning on playing more Thursday night games in the future. That doesn’t mean the NFL isn’t planning on making more money.

According to John Ourand of SportsBusiness Journal, via Pro Football Talk, the NFL could sell an eight-game Thursday night package to an outside network for $700 million a year by the 2015 or 2016 season.

To do so, the NFL would expand its Thursday and Saturday night packages to 16 games, keeping eight of them for the NFL Network. The deal would also include a wild card game, which would be easy to do with the postseason expanding to include 14 teams.

Turner, NBCSN, and FS1 are all believed to be interested in the package. On the other hand, ESPN, which already spends $2 billion on Monday Night Football, is not likely to pickup the package, as it is unlikely they will be able to raise the price on their monthly subscription packages.