money money money
notre dame
kevin warren
acc challenge
peacock
big ten network
television rights
still FOX, still Charles Woodson [Patrick Barron]

Large Contract, Many Bullet Points Comment Count

Brian August 18th, 2022 at 2:31 PM

As was rumored for weeks, the Big Ten has signed a landmark new rights deal with FOX, CBS, and NBC. Let's break out the bullets.

Money. The full deal takes a little bit to kick in, and the numbers are somewhat fuzzy because some people appear to be talking about just the money coming from the three networks mentioned above and some people are including CFP, NCAA tournament, and other rights. This is the discrepancy between 75 million (deal-related money) and 100 million (expected per-school conference distribution in a few years).

This is a lot of money. Please do not accept any requests for understanding when and if the school serves up another nonconference schedule like this one.

Oh God, the commercials. There was a time way back in the long ago when this site was enthused about exploding rights fees. It's hard to remember why, but it was probably some combination of tribalism and hilariously naïve beliefs that some of this money would result in positive changes for anyone other than the people drawing salaries from the athletic department.

After years of bludgeoning in the courts of public opinion and, you know, actual courts, the NCAA has budged on some things—cost of living stipends, free food—but these athlete-supporting changes are peripheral. The money is still going to the coaching/administrator class. I see no reason that would change, so the main takeaway here for people who watch the sports is to prepare for an even heavier inundation of ads. I would expect the powers that be to push for more NFL style rules to reduce the number of plays, literally replacing football with ads.

[After THE JUMP: mandatory streaming service, Notre Dame status.]

The windows. The way the deal is structured takes a lot of uncertainty out of scheduling. FOX has a noon game, CBS has a 3:30 game, and NBC has an 8:00 game. Big Noon has been a ratings success, so they're going to three blades. I don't speak MBA but this does seem plausible:

“The Big Ten is going to be on three major television networks from noon until 11 o’clock at night every Saturday — that is unprecedented,” CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus told The Athletic. “That’s never happened before. The way that each of the three broadcast partners are going to feed into each other and cross-promote each other throughout the day is going to be very beneficial for all.”

Notably there is no mention of #BigTenAfterDark. It's possible we'll see some West Coast games start at 11, but I imagine that would be a distant possibility indeed. UCLA-USC is going to be too pretty to put in the late night spot and every other conference game would be throwing away central and eastern time viewership.

That's how they get you. It's 2022 so any new media deal is going to come with an attempt to force you to sign up for a streaming service. (FWIW, Frank The Tank points out that there's no way out of this for SEC fans, who are now obligated to sign up for ESPN+. )

This one:

Michigan will have basketball games on Peacock annually. There will also be eight football games; no doubt Peacock will endeavor to hit every team in the conference ASAP. They could hypothetically do it every year if they get lucky. At least it has Frasier on it?

One other potential silver lining of Peacock. It's another outlet that non-revenue sports can use:

“…over the lifetime of the deal, we will work with the Big Ten on Olympic sports that make sense for them and for us on Peacock.”

I'm a little skeptical that we're going to see significant numbers of Big Ten sports on Peacock, but you know me so what I am about to say is that Peacock's production of Notre Dame hockey is truly impressive and if they start streaming hockey games at Penn State not produced by students with malfunctioning inner ears I will be delighted. BTN is always going to be the main place to go for those things, but there are a lot of things with a potential audience (wrestling, softball, gymnastics, hockey) that could get better coverage as a result of the deal.

The money grabs have evolved. When the Big Ten added Maryland and Rutgers it was to dig into the pockets of old ladies in Yonkers who couldn't care less about college football. Now it's going into actual fans' pockets to get them to sign up for a streaming service. This is fairer, but more annoying to me personally.

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more soon? [Bryan Fuller]

Wither Notre Dame? Brett McMurphy's reporting on this touches on further Big Ten expansion:

The contract includes an escalator clause, meaning the deal could approach nearly $10 billion if the Big Ten’s membership increases, network sources said. Even after adding USC and UCLA, the Big Ten “is not done” expanding, sources told Action Network.

Last month, Action Network reported the Big Ten would expand beyond 16 schools and was targeting Notre Dame, along with Oregon, Washington, Stanford and Cal from the Pac-12. Those plans have not changed, sources said this week.

The Sports Business Journal speculates that ND could fetch 60-75 million when their contract is up in 2025, but the way this is worded is pretty confusing:

Sources say the school should expect around $60 million per year from a new contract -- though it’s hard to predict how the media business will look three years from now.

There had been speculation that Notre Dame could command a rights fee upward of $75 million per year when it renegotiates its new contract. That’s because it fills its schedule with games -- like its long-standing rivalry with Navy -- that traditionally bring in lower ratings.

I don't get why lower-rated games against Navy would be associated with the higher number. I imagine that has to mean "ND's schedule sucks and we don't want to pay for those games." FWIW, it seems like the 75 million number is a target that's coming from ND and not a projection from an industry insider.

One way to fix that schedule is with more Big Ten games, which are in the offing. One Big Ten school in particular:

…its association with NBC -- and NBC’s new association with the Big Ten -- make it likely that the Fighting Irish would add more Big Ten games to its schedule.

In other words, expect a return of Notre Dame’s rivalry with Michigan before 2033, which is when they are next scheduled to meet.

ND's viewership numbers collapsed this year because there was not a showdown against #1 Clemson that went to double OT on the schedule; their best game was their loss to Cincinnati, which only drew 3.8 million viewers. This is bad. Wisconsin/Minnesota drew 5 million; Nebraska/Wisconsin drew 3.5; Purdue-Iowa drew 3.5.

Note that the Big Ten's media deal should mean that ND never has a home night game again: NBC will be broadcasting an 8 PM Big Ten game weekly. I'm not sure that makes a big difference, but it is an interesting side effect.

Product: worse? This is probably a blogger-exclusive complaint, but having one place to go for game replays was convenient. Having games split over two or more streaming services is going to make organizing libraries more of a pain.

Close to perfection. Please someone make a version of this where the only football teams to appear are Rutgers, Maryland, Nebraska, and Northwestern. TIA.

Grimace dot emoji. I have not partaken of many Ohio State games in recent years for the same reasons the condemned don't watch axe sharpenings, so maybe this won't affect me much. But just imagining this makes my skin crawl:

Gross.

What about The Game? There's a "draft selection mosaic" for the networks, per Kevin Warren, so they'll rotate picks. Adam Rittenberg reports that you should still expect Michigan-OSU on FOX "pretty much every year." Richard Deitsch has some more detail:

Based on my understanding, Fox will get the No. 1 overall football pick each year, and that pick is for a week rather than for a game (so Fox’s top pick will undoubtedly always be for Michigan-Ohio State week).

I can get behind Gus Johnson and Joel Klatt doing The Game at noon for the next seven years.

What about the Big Ten/ACC challenge? There's been speculation that the challenge—an ESPN-driven event—will bite the dust in the new landscape. Kevin Warren's saying there's a chance, though:

"Life is long. They're professionals. Inherent in our scheduling we're going to play schools from the ACC, SEC, Big 12 and Pac-12. We still have to address the ACC-Big Ten Challenge. … ESPN is such a prominent partner in college athletics. We'll always have a partnership with them."

Hopefully they can preserve it.

Finally. Zach Shaw:

Comments

tokyowolverine

August 20th, 2022 at 2:30 AM ^

For people living overseas, we have VPNs, but what service will cover all (or most) of the games without paying high monthly fees (ex. $60/mth).  Any suggestions?  Thanks!

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