Time Warner will need to take the NFL Network on. Their subscribers will demand it. Plus, Time Warner needs the NFL Network more than some channel about gardening or something like that.
Sometimes deadlines help and sometimes they don't make much of a difference. They rarely hurt, unless they are arbitrary or excessively short. But if you are working in good faith and the deadlines can be extended if progress is being made, they work well.
This is a really smart move. The NFL Network will get many more subscribers and is going to be available to many more households. That will allow the NFL Network to be viewed by tens of millions more people regularly.
It says something when other networks aggressively put up their strongest programming against the Olympics.
They'll be able to build the NFL Network into something far more significant. On the 357 days when games are not being carried, NFL programming will be going into people's homes.
The key is to get on basic. We'll see a dramatic rise in the number of homes that the NFL Network reaches.