http://msn.foxsports.com/wisconsin/story...ing-060414

Original article

FOXSportsWisconsin.com obtained the contracts for 38 of 39 Big Ten nonconference home football games for the 2014 season via open records requests. (School officials from both Penn State and Temple declined to provide a contract for their game because the documents are not public record under Pennsylvania state law.) Of the 14 Big Ten teams, 10 will pay at least $800,000 for a guaranteed nonconference home game -- Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers and Wisconsin. Three schools -- Michigan, Michigan State and Nebraska -- will pay at least $1 million for a single game.

Those one-and-done home games are getting more an more expensive each year. Wonder how this will affect ACC schools (particularly those with smaller stadiums where home games may not make as much money).

That is the exact reason why conferences are looking to add more conference games.

(06-05-2014 10:07 AM)mlb Wrote:  That is the exact reason why conferences are looking to add more conference games.

Adding conference games does nothing, TBH. The ONLY way to make this cost go away is for ALL games to be home & home - but that also means that everybody plays 6 home, 6 away games every year. As long as there are more home than away, there will always be the need to pay the visiting one & done team.

Maybe I'm not thinking right and I clearly don't understand the TV situation as well as others here, but couldn't they make up the difference of losing a home games by adding value to the B1G Network?

If they had better opponents for home and home games wouldn't they have higher rated B1G network games, and with those higher ratings couldn't they charge more to advertisers?

I mean I will NEVER watch an OSU vs Akron game unless its the only thing on. I will watch a Michigan vs Clemson or a Wisconsin vs Auburn. In fact I'm even more likely to watch a IU vs Wake than I would a Penn St vs EMU.

I don't know how much revenue a single game brings them but I know they make a ton off the network, it would seem they shouldn't be hurting for those ticket sales so badly.

(06-05-2014 04:40 PM)ULdave Wrote:  Maybe I'm not thinking right and I clearly don't understand the TV situation as well as others here, but couldn't they make up the difference of losing a home games by adding value to the B1G Network?

If they had better opponents for home and home games wouldn't they have higher rated B1G network games, and with those higher ratings couldn't they charge more to advertisers?

I mean I will NEVER watch an OSU vs Akron game unless its the only thing on. I will watch a Michigan vs Clemson or a Wisconsin vs Auburn. In fact I'm even more likely to watch a IU vs Wake than I would a Penn St vs EMU.

I don't know how much revenue a single game brings them but I know they make a ton off the network, it would seem they shouldn't be hurting for those ticket sales so badly.

A home game at a place like Michigan or Ohio St brings in $5-7 million in revenue. That money doesn't have to be shared with the other athletic departments in the Big 10.

The profits from the B10 network, on the other hand, have to be shared among all B10 member equally. So for Michigan to recoup that lost $5-7 million in revenue, you'd need to add $70 and $98 million to the B10 network ($5-7 million for each of the 14 members).

(06-05-2014 04:40 PM)ULdave Wrote:  Maybe I'm not thinking right and I clearly don't understand the TV situation as well as others here, but couldn't they make up the difference of losing a home games by adding value to the B1G Network?

The comment about home game ticket sales is spot on, but there's another aspect as well...

The Big Ten Network revenue model is based on cable TV fees and is therefore essentially unaffected by ratings.

Not that ratings have no bearing whatsoever, but only in an indirect way. The real issue is what percentage of cable subscribers in the area think BTN is important to them as measured by people switching carriers and/or subscribing at a higher level to get BTN. Once they get it, it doesn't matter whether they watch the games or not.*

So even if EVERY Big Ten team played 12 P5 games per year, it might not affect TV revenue much at all, TBH.

* there is SOME revenue from advertising but it's small compared to carriage fees.

(06-05-2014 09:36 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  The Big Ten Network revenue model is based on cable TV fees and is therefore essentially unaffected by ratings.


* there is SOME revenue from advertising but it's small compared to carriage fees.

That's not really true. Just the only thing the media talks about.

For one, if the viewership is not there (which means the ad revenue isn't) they will not have their carriage fees renewed at the same rate. This has happened to networks before, and is one reason why cable sports properties keep going up in value: networks cannot afford to lose programming that is built into their carriage rates. That is why Monday Night Football is now on ESPN and not on ABC. That is why ESPN called up the NFL, and asked to negotiate an extension for MNF three years early, and basically volunteered to pay them more money sooner, because they wanted the longer expiration dates when they went back to renegotiate.

Case in point: the NFL Network makes more than $300 million per year in ad revenue. The Big Ten draws more viewers for live games than the NFL Network does. So there is certainly a lot of money to be made on ad-revenue.

However, that is not money that shows up on next week's invoice statement, which makes it harder to sell to teams. but in time, they will (hence nine conference games, ending games vs. 1AA schools, and increased pressure to play more P5 schools OOC from Delaney).