Over the past few years I've had several guests from the NFL Network on Sports Business Radio. I am a big fan of the network and I think they do a tremendous job covering the NFL. The problem is that they are still struggling mightily with distribution. They launched the network and put the cart before the horse thinking that the network would be in such great demand, that providers would be salivating to make distribution deals with them. The network was wrong. Despite putting some compelling regular season games on the network, the demand simply hasn't been there.

Now comes word via the Wall Street Journal that the NFL Network is in talks to form a partnership with ESPN. Sources tell the WSJ that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Disney President & CEO Robert Iger have discussed a scenario that involves combining the NFL Network with ESPN Classic, which has a wider distribution.

Analyst Derek Baine mentions in the WSJ piece that ESPN would broadcast eight more games per season on ESPN Classic, and then attempt to wring higher subscription fees than the [$0.16-0.17] it currently receives for the channel.

The other strategy is to bundle the NFL Network with all of the other Disney-owned channels (Disney owns ESPN), which puts pressure on distributors to take all of the Disney channels or take none at all. Currently the NFL Network doesn't have that kind of leverage and is an island of sorts as a stand-alone network.

Major League Baseball's 24-hour channel is set to launch in 47 million homes in January of 2009, so the time for the NFL Network to make a deal that nets them wider distribution is now.

Sports Business Radio contributor and friend Paul Swangard who is the Managing Director of University of Oregon's Warsaw Sports Marketing Center told Bloomberg News last week, "This is the NFL recognizing that their choice in launching this network and the tack they chose was not the right path. The whole episode gave off a little bit of an NFL bravado, a 'we can do it all ourselves and people will demand this channel'".

Paul is right. Its time for the NFL Network to pull the rip cord and recognize their mistake and make a deal with a company like Disney to get wider distribution. The network is seen in only about 10 million homes and if they are to survive and thrive over the long haul they need to partner with a bigger network.