There Is Even More Money
The Big Ten will have yet more money with which to not fire Darrell Hazell in the near future:
Fox is close to signing a deal that gives it half of the Big Ten’s available media rights package, according to several sources. Deal terms still are flexible – both in terms of money and rights. However, the two sides have agreed on basic terms that will give Fox the rights to around 25 football games and 50 basketball games that it will carry on both the broadcast channel and FS1 starting in the fall of '17. The deal runs six years and could cost Fox as much as $250M per year, depending on the amount of rights the Big Ten conference puts in its second package.
Let's think some thoughts about this.
First, this is why the TV networks hurl the money. Combine this graph…
…with the relative prosperity of Big Ten folks versus the other section of the country that can't get enough college football and you get a lot of money. When it comes to Jim Delany, this is strictly Bedouins owning the land the oil is on. It's replacement-level performance. You are the reason TV networks are throwing crazy dollars at the Big Ten.
Second, it's a lot of money. Per SBD, the potential 250 million dollar deal is half of a package the Big Ten is currently getting 112 million for from ESPN and CBS. I imagine the total will come in under a half billion dollars a year unless they want to evaporate from ESPN entirely, which they probably don't. It's still a staggering amount of dough.
Third, it's not for very long. A six year term is unusually short when it comes to these kind of contracts, and it puts the Big Ten's rights up at around the same time everybody else sees theirs expire. Six years may be unusually short from the perspective of rights contracts—the BTN has their rights package until 2032(!)—but this is an unusual transition period.
In six years everyone may decide to boot the middleman and make everything more or less WWE Network, except unscripted. Or they may carry on because momentum is a powerful thing and ESPN matters. Meanwhile, networks are already looking at the number of dollars they've committed in a uncertain environment and blanching. SBN reports that ESPN's offer was "not competitive."
The Big Ten wanted a deal that would expire at the same time the BTN deal does and did not get it. Uncertainty reigns.
Fourth, mark your calendars. In six years there will be another tumultuous period of conference expansion. Contracts will be more or less up across the spectrum, grant-of-rights agreements in the ACC will be close to expiring, and it'll be time for another dance of doom.
Fifth, I'm relatively happy about FOX. Gus Johnson and Joel Klatt are both great and we'll be hearing a lot more of them call Michigan games in the future. Gus doing more Michigan basketball is also enticing. FS1 is a wasteland of hot takes delivered by morons, but FOX's actual game coverage has gotten a lot better over the last few years.
Also, adding college football to Fox networks increases the WALL OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL effect on Saturdays this fall. More options for games to watch and less pressure to bump Michigan off of noon windows* gets a thumbs up from me. I kind of want Fox to always put Michigan on at noon on the broadcast network.
*[Noon is the best time for a game if you want to watch the rest of CFB.]
Sixth, just pay some people. The Big Ten now has hundreds of millions of dollars and no additional expenses.
b) stop chasing naming rights on buildings and staff / coaching positions
Amen to that!
"I am honored to have my name and title as Michigan head football coach associated with Ira and Nicki," said Brady Hoke, the J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Head Football Coach. "The Harris family has been incredibly generous to Michigan Athletics. Beginning with Bo (Schembechler), they established meaningful relationships with members of our Michigan football coaching tree, and I am honored to be one of them."
"We are incredibly appreciative of the generosity of Ira and Nicki," said Dave Brandon, the Donald R. Shepherd Director of Athletics. "This tremendous leadership gift will strengthen our program for years to come and ensure that future generations of Wolverines will continue to benefit from outstanding coaching and leadership."
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There are a ton of good reasons to have taken Mizzou over Rutgers; that graph isn't one of them.
According to the graph, in the NYC/Pilly/DC corridor between 17.5%-28.2% of people are college football fans. The population in just those metro areas is well over 30 million.
The state of Missouri's % of fans ranges from 28.3%-39.5%, but MO's entire population is 6 million.
The big flaw in the graph is its failure to take population into account. 20% of NYC is way more eyeballs than 40% of St. Louis.
You can easily make the argument that Rutgers and Maryland are not the college football teams people in those areas are interested in watching, but the graph shows a huge advantage in taking MD and Rutgers from purely a demographic standpoint.
Now, if you take into account little things like competitiveness, geographic/cultural fit, scandals, quality of leadership, etc. there's a much stronger argument.
When talking about revenue from viewership , % of fans in a region doesn't mean much. The number of fans is much more important.
The Big 12 contract says at least 7 games a year on FOX; the Pac 12 contract says at least 8 games a year on FOX, and at least 4 of those in prime time. That's 15 total; figure the B1G gets 8-12 more or so. Since the FOX Sports Media Group (FSMG) bought 25 games a year, that must mean that about 13 or so will be on FS1.
Here is FOX's broadcast schedule from last season. This is the main network, not FS1. They showed 18 games in 14 weeks:
Week 1 Virginia at UCLA (Sa-3:30)
Week 2 Iowa at Iowa State (Sa-4:30)
Week 3 California at Texas (Sa-7:30)
Week 4 TCU at Texas Tech (Sa-4:45); Utah at Oregon (Sa-8:30)
Week 5 Arizona State at UCLA (Sa-7:30)
Week 6 TCU at Kansas State (Sa-7:30)
Week 7 West Virginia at Baylor (Sa-noon)
Week 8 Utah at USC (Sa-7:30)
Week 9 USC at California (Sa-3:00)
Week 10 TCU at Oklahoma State (Sa-3:30); Utah at Washington (Sa-7:30)
Week 11 Oregon at Stanford (Sa-7:30)
Week 12 UCLA at Utah (Sa-3:30); Baylor at Oklahoma State (Sa-7:30)
Week 13 Washington State at Washington (Fr-3:30); Notre Dame at Stanford (Sa-7:30)
Week 14 Big Ten Championship (Sa-8:00)
That's 10 Pac-12 games (2 more than the contract minimum), 7 Big 12 games (1 more than the contract minimum) and 1 Big Ten game. 1 at noon, 7 mid-afternoon and 10 at night. Figure they add about 10 more games a year starting in 2017 once the B1G contract starts, and figure the game times are distributed the way ABC distributed their games a couple of years ago--a few noon games, a few mid-afternoon and a few night.
The sound quality on FOX football broadcasts is terrible. It sounds like they're playing in a tunnel. Hopefully that improves in the future.
Love noon games when I'm here. Hate them when I go to A2.
It's great to wake up, watch the Michigan game, then have most of a (usually beautiful) day to enjoy (assuming glorious Michigan victory).
On the other hand, it's torture to travel east, lose 3 hours, then try to suck it up for a pre-noon game tailgate.
If the ACC falls apart in six years, maybe that's when we get Pitt and Notre Dame into the B1G?
I could not caere less about Notre Dame. If they come, ship them out to the Big Ten West with Sparty.
April 20th, 2016 at 11:39 PM ^
I would picture ND in the west too.
1. assemble lots of fans
2. get money
3. don't sign long term deal
4. mark calendars
5. ..........
6. PROFIT
April 20th, 2016 at 10:53 PM ^
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