(09-16-2013 01:41 PM)emu steve Wrote: I don't know what makes sense?
Normally one could take the last contract and 'inflate' it by say 25 or 50% and go with that number.
But, 150% of a small number is still a small number.
The thing is that in the existing contract, the MAC seemed to have traded away some dollar value in return for exposure.
The value of live sports programming to advertisers has increased dramatically in the past five years, due to the impact of DVR'ing shows and skipping ads. The last MAC contract may not have factored all of that in, because there was less competition for their rights.
And the MAC continues to be willing to play weeknights to get on the higher exposure channels, while other higher profile ESPN partner conferences may balk at mid-week football, creating greater need in the ESPN inventory for mid-week games from the MAC.
And looking ahead, FS1 could well be in competition for the MAC rights if it goes to market, for similar reasons.
So it could be that the market value has gone up two to four times.
And of course, a large share of the media value of MAC in the current contract may have been taken in guaranteed exposure rather than dollars. Supposing that was 50:50 in value taken through exposure guarantees rather than dollar payment ~ if the value of the rights doubled, and they stood pat on exposure guarantees and took all of that increase in value in dollars, that would be four times the dollar value. If the value of the rights quadrupled, and they stood pat on exposure guarantees and took all of that increase in value in dollars, that would be eight times the dollar value.
That's back of the envelope, but that's one way that the dollar value of the media rights could plausibly rise from the low $100,000's to $1m.