http://blogs.forbes.com/sportsmoney/2011...nancially/



"Although the NCAA did not list the 14 schools turning a net profit, Notre Dame is one of them. Athletic Director, Jack Swarbrick, has revealed that Notre Dame actually pours money back into the college’s coffers, to the tune of about $10 million in 2009."

IMO, this is the key passage:

"Unlike the other 13 schools on the list, Notre Dame is able to turn a profit without being part of a conference. They have their own lucrative television contract, rumored to garner them about $15m a year. However, Notre Dame finance professor Richard Sheehan, who was involved with the NBC negotiations, has said the rumored value is low. “The NBC contract is more lucrative than pretty much anyone knows,” he says."

If ND is actually making more than $15m, say closer to $20m from NBC, then that would explain why they aren't keen to join a conference. That would be SEC/Big 10 money. Particularly since we're talking a broadcast network here, which is still more prestigious and provides more potential exposure than even ESPN.

I thought that I read somewhere that when the most recent ND-NBC deal was signed was that NBC would be paying ND's athletics dept and throwing cash into the general fund/endowment for academic scholarships.

Maybe all we hear about is what gets tossed to athletics.

This is also why Notre Dame is heavily active in helping the Big East get a huge TV deal. If we get an ACC-type deal then it protects us against raids for the most part. That means that Notre Dame can continue to maintain the status quo while getting a bump in pay (due to the Big East's basketball contract). This is exactly why Swarbick made it clear last summer that the Big East needed to take steps towards becoming a superpower financially. It's also why they're interested in us starting our own conference network, again a huge monster payday for us that makes Notre Dame and the conference stable.

(04-24-2011 06:48 PM)CatsClaw Wrote:  This is also why Notre Dame is heavily active in helping the Big East get a huge TV deal. If we get an ACC-type deal then it protects us against raids for the most part.

I'm not sure it does, even for the most part. The ACC has already helped itself to the Big East members it wanted. It doesn't covet any of our current members. And the other raid threat, the Big 10, got its new teams from the Big 12 and wouldn't be interested in adding anyone other than a Notre Dame. Theoretically, the Big 12 could try to lure TCU away from us, but if they weren't interested in them last year, it's hard to imagine them becoming interested in the future.

So i don't think we face a raid threat to any of our football schools anymore.

Beyond that, of course Notre Dame wants its Big East sports to make as much as possible. Our current basketball deal is the largest in total dollars, but with 16 mouths to feed we are only 4th among the BCS conferences in per-team basketball TV money.

That has to go up.

(04-20-2011 09:20 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  IMO, this is the key passage:

"Unlike the other 13 schools on the list, Notre Dame is able to turn a profit without being part of a conference. They have their own lucrative television contract, rumored to garner them about $15m a year. However, Notre Dame finance professor Richard Sheehan, who was involved with the NBC negotiations, has said the rumored value is low. “The NBC contract is more lucrative than pretty much anyone knows,” he says."

If ND is actually making more than $15m, say closer to $20m from NBC, then that would explain why they aren't keen to join a conference. That would be SEC/Big 10 money. Particularly since we're talking a broadcast network here, which is still more prestigious and provides more potential exposure than even ESPN.

Actually they are in a conference. Could they truly exist completely independent? NO
They get $15m for football and about $3m - $4m from basketball. Those $20m figures are usually for all-sport.

ND can't help with the football portion unless we opt to talk with Comcast/NBC. ESPN or other won't listen to ND about ESPN's aspirations to pay Big East, they have nothing to do with ESPN regarding football. ND can only help if at all with bball and the other non rev sports. But for football, not so much.