With Fox Sports 1, CBS Sports Network and NBCSN looking for live sports programming, the Mid-American Conference could have tested the market with their television rights package..

Instead, the MAC decided the best move was to stay with ESPN. With three years left on its deal, the conference announced Tuesday a 10-year extension with ESPN through the 2026-27 academic year.

It is the largest and most extensive agreement in the 68-year history of the conference. It also adds provisions to the remaining three years of the existing agreement.


http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/sma...story.html

No doubt because Fox Sports 1, CBS Sports Network and NBCSN would pay a whole lot less and all provide fewer viewers. Not much of a bargaining position.

They couldn't have tested the market ... not without waiting for several more years. This was a contract negotiation with the existing streaming partner ... the open negotiation period would have been much closer to the July 1, 2017 expiration of the current contract.

And as axeme pointed out, there's no guarantee that Fox Sports would bid anything more than the $10m/yr that ESPN offered. Certainly CBSSN and NBCSN would not have offered that much for the MAC, and its not clear that Fox Sports would have either, since a slice of that is for ESPN3 content, and none of those other three are playing the streaming sports game in that way.

This was a good deal for the MAC. Unlikely it would have done a whole lot better by waiting. This way you get to make plans with the deal locked in.