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ARENA FOOTBALL LEAGUE MEDIA CONFERENCE

December 19, 2006

CHRIS McCLOSKEY: Good morning, everybody. This is Chris McCloskey with the Arena Football League. Just a brief rundown of today's call. We're going to have two speakers, Commissioner David Baker of the Arena Football League and ESPN executive vice president president of content John Skipper. Following opening remarks, there will be a Q&A.
Commissioner Baker, I'll turn it over to you.
DAVE BAKER: Thank you, Chris.
Today is a great day for all of us in the Arena Football League. As the AFL embarks on its 21st season this March, I'm proud to announce today that it will do so with a new media partner, the worldwide leader in sports, ESPN. ESPN and ABC will televise at least 17 regular-season games, nine playoff games, and the Arena Bowl through the year 2011.
This year ABC will bookend the season by televising week one on March 4th, and Arena Bowl XXI, which will be the first team league championship to happen in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina, and that will be on July 29th.
However, I think what's important about this partnership is that it's more than a simple television deal. It's the most comprehensive and longest media partnership in AFL history. Yes, the five-year agreement includes network and cable TV rights, but it also includes ancillary programming, broadband and new media rights, international distribution, guaranteed promotion, and very importantly I think almost historically certainly for a league our size an equity element to it.
ESPN has purchased an ownership stake in the Arena Football League and is now a true partner as they are officially an AFL owner. ESPN has really impressed us in our discussions with them as being committed and motivated to using its 15 distribution outlets to make the AFL a leading multimedia property, global sports content provider.
But perhaps I think the most important exciting element of this partnership for our fans is ESPN's strategy of introducing year-round football on Monday nights. 14 of ESPN's regular-season games in 2007 will be broadcast on Monday night, which has become a football institution.
For more on ESPN's Monday night strategy, I want to introduce to you an esteemed executive of the AFL's newest partner and tell you that he and all the members of his staff who entered into prolonged negotiations with us and our ownership have really been a pleasure to deal with, and I'm excited about the impact that we're going to have in the future.
John Skipper of ESPN had to travel to Newark, to Louisville, a lot of other places to get this deal done and drop everything he was doing to work on it. We're thankful you did. Welcome to the Arena Football League family, John.
JOHN SKIPPER: Thank you, David. You're assuming I was doing something else (laughter).
I'm happy to be here. Appreciate everybody else being here. I'm excited about this deal because I'm a football fan. I'm excited about the opportunity to watch football year-round. I'm enthusiastic about the Arena Football League's prospects. I think David and his staff and the owners have done a great job of getting the league to where it is today.
We think with the commitment of ESPN, we have a significant commitment across all of our platforms with a consistent schedule on Mondays, with some promotional commitments we've made with some ESPN marketing behind it, getting it across our Internet platforms, including our broadband services, our telephone services, our magazine, our news and information product, we we think we have a real opportunity to help grow the Arena Football League.
We believe in its prospects, which is why we have acquired an equity stake, which we're thrilled about. It's a new and interesting arrangement for us. We think it speaks to the level of our commitment, provides us an opportunity to sort of put our resources behind growing the league and end up participating in that growth.
We're excited. I extend my thanks to the commissioner for all his hard work and courtesies, and I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Q. David, how long did it take and were there other possible deals you could have made or was it just this one sounded so good you just worked pretty much solely on this one?
DAVE BAKER: I'll tell you, I think first of all it was kind of a situation where we're very thankful for NBC and all they did for the Arena Football League the last four years. But we were in a situation where we really couldn't begin this until that relationship ended. That was I think a couple of weeks after the Arena Bowl.
Since then we immediately began that process and talked to multiple parties. I think we had five of them appear at our board meeting, including John and three other senior executives of ESPN, other real quality network providers, that were at our board meeting at September in Newark. This has been kind of a process of competition of multiple negotiations.
But at that meeting in September, our board basically said in terms of our lead media partner, they wanted to negotiate exclusively with ESPN. We began those discussions I think, John, about the end of September.
JOHN SKIPPER: Yes.
DAVE BAKER: John actually attended another board meeting I think the end of October. We concluded about a week ago.

Q. How big is your board?
DAVE BAKER: The board meeting is a little bit like stepping into the United Nations General Assembly. We've got 20 teams, but it's a situation where each team has two representatives. Sometimes they bring some staff. It's a group where you have eight NFL owners, four NBA owners, Elway, Jon Bon Jovi both there at different times. I assure you that Jon has got strong opinions on TV. John Skipper did a good job holding his own with all those guys.
At the end of it, I want you to know that Jon Bon Jovi, Elway, the rest of the guys, all wanted John Skipper's autograph. Fortunately we got it on a contract.

Q. John, why is it important to have the year-round platform on Monday nights?
JOHN SKIPPER: Well, as you know, we say it a lot because we believe it, which is our job is to serve fans. Our fans love football. We've had, as you know, a terrific year this year with Monday night. We've had a terrific year with college football. We've had a wonderful experience with the NFL Draft. We love it when the training camps open. We have had in the past a wonderful experience doing the Pro Bowl. In between all of that football, there have been some gaps. I love the idea of filling in those gaps. I think our fans will love it, as well.
It seemed to us to be a good opportunity. We worked with David in terms of when he would be scheduling the league. It works perfectly for us starting in March and ending in July.

Q. David, was the equity part of the negotiations essential? Would you have not done this deal with ESPN or anyone else if equity had not been involved?
DAVE BAKER: Let me tell you, we don't like giving away equity. We don't like selling equity because we think this is a property that is growing.
But I think it was kind of important ultimately to both sides because, you know, I think this is a deal where in the end - John, I don't want to speak for you - there is more money to be made by growing the league than just by broadcasting the media rights. Therefore, it becomes a true partnership.
I think, therefore, ESPN becomes strongly insentivized to promoting it and growing us.
JOHN SKIPPER: Yes.
DAVE BAKER: To my knowledge, again, I think this is a different form of agreement and a little bit historic, like I said, certainly for a league our size.
JOHN SKIPPER: I think for us, you heard me say in my opening remarks, if we commit the resources of the ESPN media assets to grow the league, we like the equity there as an incentive that we'll get recompense for doing that. I think David likes it as a form of commitment. It gives him a tangible form of our commitment to the league and our intentions.
DAVE BAKER: This isn't dating. This is getting married.

Q. You said there's going to be components with espn.com, the magazine, that type of stuff. Can you describe what that will look like?
JOHN SKIPPER: My general intention was to relay that our intention was to use all of the media assets of ESPN. But, for instance, we might well do a bound-in preview of the AFL in the magazine for the year. We do think we'll do an Arena Football League fantasy game on espn.com. You'll look to see us help the Arena Football League with their website, building out their Internet presence so we can use some of our resources there. Those will be a couple examples of the kind of things we might do.

Q. That will all be new stuff?
JOHN SKIPPER: It will all be new, yes.

Q. John, in terms of production, what are your plans in terms of the television production side, in terms of using announcers? Are you going to tie to come up with new things you might try out on the AFL you could use on Monday night as well in the future?
JOHN SKIPPER: We will certainly look to be experimental, innovative. I'd be misleading you if I told you what all those things were going to be. We've been concentrating on the deal.
One thing I can announce. In the course of the negotiations, I was traveling back and forth to the Monday night games. Jay Rothman, who is our producer, very excellent producer on our Monday Night Football, said, Hey, I'd like to get involved with that. As a sign of the kind of level of people we'll put on it, Jay will be our producer on Monday night. I'll get with Jay, David, Norby Williamson who runs our production for us, make decisions on specifically how we're going to produce the game, who the announcers are going to be. I would think we'd have some announcements on that really in January.
The good news is I'm not being coy. We got the deal done, now we got to figure it out. I can tell you we're committed to being innovative, experimental, and doing a first-shelf production. I think that's one of the ways we can enhance and grow the league.
DAVE BAKER: We happen to have a couple ESPN announcers who are owners in our league. I got to tell you, Mike Ditka and Ron Jaworski, who is a partner of Jon Bon Jovi and Craig Spencer in Philadelphia, and Mike Ditka, one of the owners of the team in Chicago, the Chicago Rush, they would call me almost every Tuesday morning during the course of these negotiations wanting to know how things were going. On the plane back from the Monday night game, these guys would be talking to Jay Rothman about exciting things they could do.
We're looking forward to getting to work on that kind of stuff now.
JOHN SKIPPER: And lobbying me on the plane. I would point out because Mike and Ron are owners, we do understand the restraints that will have to be put on their roles in terms of analysis or news coverage. They're owners and would have a conflict. But we'd be happy to have them visit the booth.

Q. John, you get in these negotiating deals with other leagues, how important is having an equity stake just in having a little control over what happens to the rights, that sort of thing? Is this sort of a model for the future?
JOHN SKIPPER: I would agree with the last part of your question there. We do believe it could be a model. By no means is it 'the' model. I would not confirm sort of your assumption this might provide us more control. We have a minority stake. I think we have to be quite careful that the Arena Football League needs to do the things the Arena Football League needs to do to succeed.
The main thing the equity -- in other words, we don't have control. As a minority shareholder, we can be overruled. If we are not the best partner for something in the future, the Arena Football League could pursue a different path.
However, if they did that, because we helped to grow and develop the league, we would benefit from that. That is the principal motivation for us, is that, look, we're going to benefit.
Having said that, we of course hope to be the Arena Football League's media partner for many, many years. In the agreement we have some representations to that effect. You heard David say it's the longest deal they've done. We would certainly hope we'll both be very happy partners for many, many years.
Control is not the purpose.

Q. "Control" might not be the right word. You are in the room when these decisions are made, right?
JOHN SKIPPER: We will have insight into the league that certainly will be helpful. Again, that wasn't really the motivation. I think insight into the league can help us in terms of helping the league, whether it be marketing services, thinking about how the rules are, how we might produce the game. We hope to have a voice in all that. To be fair to lots of our other partners, most of our other partners are happy to have us have some voice in that as well.
I would say the equity is primarily a matter of financial incentive and commitment.

Q. You mentioned obviously Jaworski and Ditka have to be limited in what they can say. Are you going to have to have disclaimers when you cover this on SportsCenter, that ESPN is a partner in the league?
JOHN SKIPPER: I think we understand how to separate our production of games from our news and information coverage. While this partnership takes the form of equity, think about the significance and the depth of our relationships with a number of the leagues. We have a very significant financial commitment to the NFL, Major League Baseball and NBA. While this new deal is very important to us, those deals, the financial stakes, are even higher.
I don't think we will treat this any differently even though the form of the financial participation is different.

Q. I only say it because both you and David have talked about how the equity means you have a real interest in promoting the league, making the league get top-shelf treatment. You don't slight other leagues. Being a participant in that process, in the benefits of that process, do you think you're going to need to label it in some way when you do it?
JOHN SKIPPER: I don't think so because I don't think we will do -- it's a good question. We will certainly have internal debate. I'm sure the news and information people will weigh in. We have an ombudsman who will weigh in whether we feel the fans need to be told that in order to be cognizant of it.
However, we don't say when we do a Monday Night Football game, we paid a lot of money for this game, you should be aware we have an interest in promoting it across our networks. I think people understand that we and the leagues are in business together. We have just as much financial incentive to promote NBA games, promote Major League Baseball games because we have a big bet on those. This just happens to take a different form.
I would think the more appropriate comparison might be among developing leagues, growing leagues, this is one way for the Arena Football League to distinguish themselves and get a greater share of attention and promotion than they might have gotten otherwise. I don't think this is really relevant to what happens with the NFL, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association. It might be relevant to other sports that are growing.
DAVE BAKER: We're excited about this incentive for them and for us to grow. But they've spent a lot more money. I don't think we can disclose how much. I can tell you they have spent more money on the NFL than they have on us.
Specifically in our agreement I can tell you that it does say that in terms of governance, they have the right to information and the right to audit decisions but they don't vote on them. They can't change any rules and they won't let me produce any SportsCenter shows.

Q. What is this move going to do for the salary cap? Is that going to stretch the players out? Those who have NFL hopes perhaps are going to be playing from March until theoretically January.
JOHN SKIPPER: March through July.

Q. Then training camp from there.
DAVE BAKER: I think this actually helps where we are kind of with the NFL. Really this is a little bit more expansive in terms of answering your question. Back when we were with NBC, we were starting actually in mid January, a week or two before the Super Bowl. What this does is allows us to obviously start three weeks after the Super Bowl. Our regular season will end well before training camps begin in July. Our championship game is going to be at the end of July. We'll have a bye week before the big game. Really what this does is it kind of puts our players in a better position really for an off-season participation to the NFL.
The second thing is not long ago, I think it was announced a couple months ago, the Arena Football League traditionally of our eight players, six players had to go both ways. We just announced our Competition Committee, then our board passed free substitution. It means there can be more specialists and fewer guys going both ways, which can kind of help develop it.
We now have a lot of guys like Michael Bishop who is playing with Kansas City Brigade. He also plays with the CFL in the off-seasons. Other guys, I think of a Randy (indiscernible), who is with the Dolphins. I think he played something like 48 weeks straight between the NFL, AFL and maybe even the CFL. Kevin Swayne did it with the Jets and the Dragons. We actually think this is lot better for our players to position this for the season in addition to being better for our fans.

Q. What is next on your list of things to do? Getting maybe some of the teams and their local TV deals done?
DAVE BAKER: I think there's a couple things. Number one is frankly we're working with Gene Upshaw on an extension to our Collective Bargaining Agreement. I think we are close to potentially getting something done there that will help us in the stability of our league for a long time.
Second of all, we'll now put a lot of supporting partners in addition to this that ESPN knows that strategy and other networks and regional television situations that we're going to be in to focus on games that will be on Friday nights and regional TV, satellite radio and other Internet activities. From a media perspective, in addition to Collective Bargaining, those are some of the things.
In addition to that, as we get into our 21st season, we're going to be looking at new markets like Washington and St. Louis and Miami. We've got a lot of good work ahead of us here.

Q. John, you did mention you're going to have to exercise some restraint on Jaworski. You know what an impossible task that is.
JOHN SKIPPER: We're happy to have Mr. Jaworski help us think about this. We'll have him as a guest. All I meant was we have to be -- obviously we can't have him on talking about a Philadelphia-New York game. Clearly if we were going to do anything to where he got close to it, he'll have to disclose.

Q. He'll be on everywhere else talking about the game.
JOHN SKIPPER: Absolutely. Irrepressible.

Q. John, how is the equity part of the deal -- will it have any impact on the ad split?
JOHN SKIPPER: Within the games?

Q. Yes.
JOHN SKIPPER: No, it doesn't have any effect on it. We manage the ad inventory within the games. We're going to work closely with David and his staff because they've done a good job with sponsorships, activating their partners' sponsorships. We'll work closely with them.
We manage the inventory in the game and the equity has really no relationship to that.

Q. David, when you look at it, obviously the AFL grew up on ESPN before you had the other TV deals. Was it kind of appropriate or destiny that you would wind back up with ESPN?
DAVE BAKER: To quote one of my owners, Jon Bon Jovi, Who says you can't come home? His new country western song, he'd probably want me to say is a top five hit at the moment. But, I mean, I do think what's been interesting since this, there were people not only John Skipper, but guys like John Wildhack, who is still at ESPN, we've dealt with, I always thought was a great gentleman. When we would see him along the way with other networks, I think John Wildhack felt a certain pride that we were growing.
Clearly you look at ESPN, the conglomerate that it's become of 15 different platforms, both the Arena Football League and ESPN has grown. The real factor in it is not only is this a home for the Arena Football League, but this is a home for all sportsfans. One of the interesting things that came up in our research was that when people were asked, Where do you go first for sports? The indexing on ESPN was something like a phenomenal 219.
We have a very young demographic, as you know. All those young people I think primarily go first to ESPN to find their sports information. But there's a whole lot of other sportsfans that will now get introduced to Arena Football, the manner in which our product has grown in quality since we started there.

Q. John, being a little different with the Arena Football broadcasts, will you look back and see how ESPN presented it years ago, how NBC did it? Will you take a little of what worked in the past? What are some of the ideas you might have in making the TV broadcast look better going forward?
JOHN SKIPPER: Well, I think we certainly will probably be smart to look at the broadcasts and look at things that were well done, things that we can improve upon. We'll look at skycam, using that in some of the games which I think can be fun. I think we'll look at some HD broadcasts. We will try to think about some unique talent in the booth. I think we can have some fun.
As we've proven on Monday Night Football this year, I think you can have guests, musical elements. I think the Arena Football League lends itself to that sort of a fun, entertaining environment. If you've been to games, it's young, it's exciting, it's loud, it's close to the field. I think we'll try to take advantage of all that, sort of creating a production that feels noisy, I don't mean literally, noisy and close and fun and exciting and quick cut. A lot of that is to be determined. Stylistically that's sort of our inclination at this point.

Q. Could you be more specific in terms of the structure of the equity deal? David, does this preclude the AFL from any other equity deals?
DAVE BAKER: I think the answer to both questions is no. This is a significant interest. It is not insignificant. It's not a time buy. It's kind of a multimedia, comprehensive partnership. As John would say, told me in the negotiations, they're giving real consideration for this.
The answer to your second question is, we've been approached by a number of equity investors. We continue to study that as a possibility. Our owners continue to examine it. But it's not mutually exclusive.

Q. David, some of the staunch AFL fans are complaining with the rule changes, going to Monday Night Football, you're taking their league away from them, making it too much like football. They're complaining they grew up watching the old Arena League and they would prefer to keep it the same.
DAVE BAKER: Well, I think all things evolve. The Arena Football League has evolved in my 10 years here. I think as evidenced by attendance being up 35% in the last four years, I think our Internet is up 410% over the last three years. Our viewers during that same time period have gone from 12 million to 65 million. All I can tell you is that there's a lot more people watching it than ever before.
I listen a lot to fans. Our goal is to be the most fan-friendly league in the world. I can still tell you that this is like a drink out of a fire hose. It is high-scoring, heart attack, helmet-popping, heart-stopping football all the time, where athletes are still out there signing autographs after the game.
I think the game has only gotten better. I can tell you that we have played on Monday nights before. The bulk of our games are still going to be on Friday and Saturday nights. We're going to have more games on Friday and Saturday nights this year than ever before because we're not having to play games on Sunday afternoons, which is what a lot of fans want.
Really we think this is responding to fans. Some of those rule exchanges I can only tell you are coming from John Elway who is chairman of the Competition Committee who knows a lot about football and believes strongly in this game.

Q. That's the point they made. National Football League people are making the decisions, not Arena Football League people.
DAVE BAKER: I got to tell you, I disagree with that. I know John Elway as an Arena Football League person. This guy loves our game. He spends 80% of his time, which is in high demand, on the Colorado Crush and the Arena Football League.
I think he happens to be a former NFL player who loves Arena Football. I can't remember who it was who was from the Philadelphia Enquirer earlier, but it was a situation where, let me tell you, Ron Jaworski, guys have accused him of coming out of the closet for Arena Football because he loves it so much.
Whenever we talk to any owner who comes into this league, I can tell you, without qualification, whether it was John Elway or Jon Bon Jovi, Jerry Jones, the first thing we spend time on is that mission statement and that fans Bill of Rights. If they don't believe in it, it doesn't matter how famous they are, it doesn't matter how much money they're willing to pay, they don't get in the Arena Football League.
I got to tell you, I look at a guy like John Elway and I know he's in the NFL Hall of Fame, but I work with him every day on the Arena Football League. To me he is an AFL owner who happened to play NFL football.

Q. ESPN puts out video games. I believe EA puts out Arena League games. Will anything change there?
JOHN SKIPPER: We have a partnership with EA guys. In video games, they do produce an Arena Football League game. We've had some early discussions, I've had some with David, some with EA, about when and what might be appropriate for a next generation game. I don't think they've made any decisions yet. We have to get you in touch with the EA guys specifically.
DAVE BAKER: Yesterday we sent out a release that EA Sports announced their second Arena Football game which will be in stores for sale I think on February 27th.

Q. John, will anything change in the way SportsCenter covers the game? Arena League never really had a prominent news hole on SportsCenter. Will viewers notice a different or will it be treated the same?
JOHN SKIPPER: It's almost of a chicken and egg question, right? We're going to try to bring innovation to the production. We will try to grow the audience. We will try to put some prominent faces in the broadcast booth. We're going to grow the league. That clearly will put it in a better position to get coverage if more fans are interested.
We do have to have a certain separation here, of the people who make the decisions on what news and information goes on SportsCenter have to be allowed to make those without regard to our partnership with the Arena Football League here.
However, having said that, we will look for opportunities where it makes sense to do profiles of players, previews of the league. We do, without apology, make sure our fans know what's coming up on our network. I'm sure we'll look for opportunities to do that.
We do take care about how we handle these things. We'll continue to do that with the Arena Football League. I think the commissioner and his owners understand that, while I expect some serious lobbying.

Q. Serious lobbying from the commissioner?
JOHN SKIPPER: I'm just teasing. David is a passionate advocate for his league. There's no question David and I will be spending more time together, going to more games together. He'll have plenty of opportunity to make me aware of the things we should be doing.
DAVE BAKER: I think what he's saying is I'm going to do everything I can to bring my 400 pounds to bear.

Q. Was there any hesitation from the news side on this deal? Did they have any awareness of it, express any reservations?
JOHN SKIPPER: Really we did this deal through the programming department because we believed as a programming group this would make great television product for ESPN. Clearly in working with the news and information, SportsCenter guys, they knew we were working on this. Their only concern is they're allowed to continue to do their job with their judgment and discretion about what is news and information. They know they will get to do that. They will have no need to express any reservations and no one has expressed any, to directly answer your question.

Q. With the NBC contract, it basically had you move the schedule back to late January, early February. How much of this now is going to be directed to fit sandwiched with camp opening up with the NFL and the end of the Super Bowl?
DAVE BAKER: We made up this schedule before we had the deal signed with ESPN. We believed this was the best season for Arena Football fans and Arena Football players. Again, we kind of represent off-season programming for people who love football. It is not 100-yard football, but it's a different form of football that is exciting, high-scoring, a lot of fun.
For us, it didn't make a whole lot of sense to overlap traditional hundred-yard football games.

Q. As far as the neutral site, you basically have been in Las Vegas. Will ESPN bring any pressure to bear as far as trying to rotate the different sites? We'd like to have it back out here in Tampa Bay. Will it be specifically Las Vegas, or will you try to go to different cities?
DAVE BAKER: We had a three-year agreement with Las Vegas to develop the neutral site game there. We really felt it was going to take three years. What intervened in that time was Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. We had give our team, the New Orleans Voodoo, which Tom Benson, who also owns the Saints, and the staff there is the staff for the Saints and Voodoo, we gave them the year off frankly because of the exigent circumstances there.
A week ago Monday we announced that our board of directors had agreed to return and really be the first team league championship coming back to New Orleans on July 29th this year. We expect that game to be a sell-out and something good for the City of New Orleans, much like Monday Night Football was when it came back to the Superdome a couple months ago. Hopefully we can do something good for that city.
I can tell you that in all of our discussions, John didn't say anything about taking the Arena Bowl, influencing where that goes. He did talk a little bit about how great a venue Bristol would be if at all possible (laughter).
JOHN SKIPPER: Don't think we have the facilities.
DAVE BAKER: We'd have to play in the cafeteria.
Las Vegas agreed to let us go to New Orleans. We'll probably go back to Las Vegas to fulfill the third year of our contract because they've been very supportive of this. Then I think it will be on a rotating basis. Tampa Bay is a great venue. We'd love to be back there.

Q. In other words, you're going to revert back to the way you were, the team with the best record is going to host?
DAVE BAKER: No. I'm saying it will be a neutral site that will be up for bid and we'll award it to cities much like the NFL does the Super Bowl.

Q. John, is there any thought to doing any kind of extended games online, streaming games, any other nights to get more games out there?
JOHN SKIPPER: We have contemplated that in the deal. We have some rights to do that. That would be something for David and I to work out. We have not worked it out. We could certainly do that and would want to do it for the league if they felt that would be helpful in continuing to grow the league. We could stream them online, on our ESPN 360 service. We don't have any announcement, any schedule. You heard David say in his opening remarks, and I would echo it, that our intention is to use all of our platforms to try to grow the league.

Q. For the financially challenged, the unbusiness mind, is there no length on the deal? Are you not announcing it? I don't understand how that works.
DAVE BAKER: Let me just tell you, it's a five-year deal. That is the longest. Our deal with NBC previously was two-year deals, got renewed twice for one-year deals. This gives us a platform to sell against, to grow. Our strategy isn't just to do the best we can next year. It's a five-year strategy to grow the Arena Football League.
At the end of that time, as John mentioned earlier, hopefully we can revisit it and extend it, stay married. If for any reason we go our different ways, we get a different broadcast partner, they get a different property, they will still retain their interest which they can hang on to or they can sell just like any other equity owner.

Q. How close financially is this deal to the ones you had with NBC? Obviously you're not going to say what it is. Is it close in structure to what it was?
DAVE BAKER: I think it's apples and oranges. This is certainly a much longer, much more comprehensive transaction that leads to incentives for both sides.
JOHN SKIPPER: I would think the biggest difference, for NBC which did a terrific job, they did a three-hour broadcast. They did some promotion. But we have an array of media assets that allows us to make a different kind of compliment to promote and develop the league. I think that really is the difference. Some of these things take a little time, which is the reason for the five years. Because I am highly confident we'll begin to grow, grow pretty quickly, we wanted to be in for five years. Both David and I liked the five-year term. So I think compared to what sort of their deal is with ours, David is right, it's apples and oranges. Ours is about espn.com, magazine, ESPN, ESPN-2, ESPN on ABC, ESPN Deportes. We haven't talked about Spanish language. We're committed across a number of platforms to grow this. I think that is a different kind of commitment that NBC had.

Q. John, I know FOX Sports Net had an Arena show weekly. Are you thinking about doing a similar thing?
JOHN SKIPPER: We have not announced. We'll sort of figure out what other programming we might do. We haven't announced that nor sort of figured it out. You give us more credit than we deserve sometimes for having figured everything out by the time we announce these things.

Q. Commissioner, did the rules changes have anything to do with you thinking about being with ESPN, especially the rules change about substitution? You're trying to get the scores down a bit, make it more for football fans to be interested. Did this have anything to do with that?
DAVE BAKER: Succinctly, no. Our Rules Competition Committee evaluates things independently on its own. Had nothing to do with television.

Q. What will be the benefit for the players? You mentioned the CBA is close, players can participate in NFL and other leagues during their off-seasons. What will be the direct benefit for players of this new deal?
DAVE BAKER: I think exposure. All of our players get up and turn the TV onto SportsCenter first. In talking to players, they're very excited about this relationship. John said it earlier. I want to emphasize that we are extremely thankful for the relationship we had with NBC. Those were good guys, too, just like John. They loved Arena Football very much.
But when we were on NBC, it was about NBC Sports broadcasting our games on NBC. ESPN is where people go for sports, not just for our broadcasts but all kinds of sports. I think that's going to be good for our players. I think it's going to be good for our fans.

Q. John, how soon will changes come as far as when will people see more stuff on espn.com? When will people say more stuff on AFL.com?
JOHN SKIPPER: I think you will see us make some progress on this between now and March 4th. March 4th is our first game. We have to scramble to begin to do things. We will concentrate most importantly on the game, that production. At the same time we'll begin to think about how we're going to cover AFL on espn.com, other places. I would think you'd begin to see in the latter part of February some preview material, promotion, marketing for the upcoming season.
DAVE BAKER: Let me say on our end, I think this is going to be a work in progress. This year is going to be exciting. We think in a lot of ways we think it will be better than last year. We think the next year is going to be better than this year. What we want is good, successive, incremental growth here. That's what's exciting about this long-term partnership.
Thank you so much. Thank you, John.
JOHN SKIPPER: Thank you, David. Appreciate all the good questions from the press.
DAVE BAKER: Thank you all for calling in. We appreciate it. We look forward to seeing you on our 21st season starting March 3rd on ESPN. Take care.

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