CSNbbs

The MAC really needs to do something about its television situation. Now that Comcast Local has closed shop that just knocked out local and regional television for four MAC schools (WMU, CMU, EMU, and BSU). Not sure what the situation is with FSN Ohio, but is it good? Do they like to play a lot of MAC games or do they only select a couple handfuls a year? Problem is FSN Ohio probably can't accommodate the six Ohio MAC schools and keep up with the professional teams. It seems like the only school in the MAC that has a solid regional television situation is NIU with Comcast SportsNet Chicago. The channel reaches four states (Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana) and those states have a combined nine D-1 teams, with six of those teams in the Big Ten and using ESPN/Big Ten network for television. That leaves Comcast SportsNet Chicago with a lot of programming room. Currently CSN Chicago is owned by Comcast, the Chicago Bulls, the Chicago White Sox, the Chicago Blackhawks, and the Chicago Cubs. Each has a 20% stake in the channel. NIU Football games are easy for them to broadcast because the only teams really playing during CF season are the Sox and Cubs. Plus, CSN Chicago has CSN+ which is another channel that opens up for programming when they have two games on at the same time. They don't use it often though because the Sox also play on WCIU and WGN and the Cubs play a lot of games on WGN.

The MAC really needs to shore up something that is concrete and can give them leverage when our ESPN contract expires. Regardless of what people might think of our current ESPN contract, i'm going to tell you now that we are getting shafted. Our current deal with them brings in very little money (compared to CUSA, MWC, and the WAC) who have better financial agreements. The only non-BCS conference that is clearly better than us is the MWC. On the football fields and basketball courts, the MAC, CUSA, and WAC are all pretty similar. Yet we have the worst television contract of the three. We should look into teaming up with CSTV or Versus.

The MAC has a five-year, $3 million contract with ESPN. That is for football and basketball. That's only $500,000 a year split 12 ways before Temple joined. That came out to about $42,000 a year per school. I don't know how the addition of Temple football-only affects the money being distributed but as far as i know our contract was not renewed/revised when they came aboard.

For comparison purposes, C-USA has a contract with ESPN for roughly $3.5 million/year. CSTV pays C-USA close to $8 million/year for the remaining football and basketball games, plus some baseball and other sports coverage. They're getting close to $12 million year, if not more, in television revenue. Each school is getting at least $1 million a year for television.

The WAC has three years remaining on a six-year, $6 million deal it signed with ESPN in 2004.

MWC has/had a 10-year, $120 million contract with CSTV for exclusive rights to broadcast athletic contests beginning in 2006. Before the MWC made the move to CSTV, ESPN offered them $4.5 million/ year ($500,000/school). I don't know what their current contract is with Comcast for The Mountain and how that affected their deal with CSTV, but their schools are still making a lot off of television revenues.


P.S. -- I posted similar a thread on the NIU board. So if you want to read the responses you can use the links below.

http://www.ncaabbs.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=284985

Good thing we got our footprint in the 4th largest media market in the country. Where is Comcast headquarters anyway?

You may want to partner with the MWC, but do they want to partner with you?

Why would the MWC schools want to further split money that they receive from their tv deal w/ 13 schools from the MAC?

End of thread.

Polish Hammer Wrote:Good thing we got our footprint in the 4th largest media market in the country. Where is Comcast headquarters anyway?

3rd (Chicago) and 4th (Philadelphia) largest markets. Detroit, Cleveland, and Toledo rank pretty high up there as well.

Gooch Wrote:Why would the MWC schools want to further split money that they receive from their tv deal w/ 13 schools from the MAC?

End of thread.

The deal they have with Comcast can be reworked to compensate for the addition of the MAC.

mattsarz Wrote:You may want to partner with the MWC, but do they want to partner with you?

I dunno, but i posted the thread on their board.

The entire agreement could help them get their channel in our Comcast markets, on Dish network, and provide a scheduling agreement among the two conferences for football and basketball. Currently, their channel does not have much value for Comcast markets outside of their own.

As it has been mentioned before, the MAC should try to get its own network deal. Or, the schools should work out deals for themselves. OU has a deal w/ GTN Columbus for football and basketball. The games then get picked up by ESPN Full Court and the equivalent for football. This idea of "partnering" w/ MWC is laughable. The idea of of piggy backing on the Big Ten Network, which was proposed in a previous thread, is even more hilarious.

Gooch Wrote:As it has been mentioned before, the MAC should try to get its own network deal. Or, the schools should work out deals for themselves. OU has a deal w/ GTN Columbus for football and basketball. The games then get picked up by ESPN Full Court and the equivalent for football. This idea of "partnering" w/ MWC is laughable. The idea of of piggy backing on the Big Ten Network, which was proposed in a previous thread, is even more hilarious.

Unless the MAC finds another national television partner outside of ESPN then we will always be stuck with local and regional television. No one gets ESPNU and most people don't want to pay $100 to get ESPN PPV or FullCourt.

The MAC NEEDS to team with another non-BCS conference for a network channel because as a whole we don't command much. As long as non-BCS conferences continue down the road of unequal scheduling agreements and television contracts we will be stuck where we are. If we team up together we can force BCS conferences to give us fairer scheduling agreements (not these 1-and-done contracts) and national networks like ABC and ESPN to give us better television contracts. As long as we only have one national outlet we will continue to be bullied by ESPN.

your right epasnoopy, The MAC has to do something to improve thier situation. Other conf are moving forward, MAC cannot be left behind if they hope to compete on div 1 level. MAC partnering with MWC would be ideal or selling rights to B-10 network, I can't believe either network has enough programming. To stay on national stage, GTN Columbus is not gonna cut it.

templefootballfan Wrote:your right epasnoopy, The MAC has to do something to improve thier situation. Other conf are moving forward, MAC cannot be left behind if they hope to compete on div 1 level. MAC partnering with MWC would be ideal or selling rights to B-10 network, I can't believe either network has enough programming. To stay on national stage, GTN Columbus is not gonna cut it.

Templefutbol, GTN is good OU. Covers Central & SE Ohio. And it gets our games on Gameplan. Partnering w/ other conferences is a dead end street as it forces you to spread the wealth instead of keeping the money in conference. People who actually think that the Big Ten is going to do that could use some perspective. They gain NOTHING out of that deal.

Polish Hammer Wrote:Good thing we got our footprint in the 4th largest media market in the country. Where is Comcast headquarters anyway?

It says Philly.

MWC.net is 50% owned by CSTV & 50% MWC. I think it would be difficult to broker a deal between the three parties. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you that the MAC needs to broker a better television deal with someone. WGN would probably be the best bet to get national coverage, but as you stated the Cubs would get priority over any MAC games. WGN would be a good fit for the MAC, if they are willing to make the investment.

Hey Gooch, it's big world out there. Did you even take bussiness courses at Ohio. I guess if the trailer park gets GTN, your happy.

There is another problem here that is not being considered. Our current contract with ESPN calls for a number of midweek football games. Central Michigan has already indicated it is no longer interested in playing conference games during the week in Mt. Pleasant. And Central Michigan and Western Michigan have recently announced their rivalry game will no longer be played during the week once the current ESPN contract expires. Where are we going with future ESPN contracts if specific schools simply say they will not play conference games during the week at home?

From looking at the MWC link you posted, it looks like the MWC wants no part of the MAC, is greedy, and is superior in every way to the MAC (and every other nonbcs conference), at least according to RebelRobert.

Temple, I just think realistically where as you live in fantasy. Besides, Temple shouldn't care how the MAC ends up as you'll be heading to the ACC in a few years. Think big!

All I would like from the MWC is some partnering agreement for scheduling 1 and 1's in football.

We could each benefit from one more winnable 1A game each year on the schedule. And get some fresh faces into our stadiums. Same for CUSA. Nobody but the Big Ten schedules us regularly, and that is rarely (never?) a 1 and 1.

notauser Wrote:MWC.net is 50% owned by CSTV & 50% MWC.

The MWC has no equity in the mtn. It is a 50-50 split between CSTV and Comcast.

The channel is built specifically for the MWC. Why would they want to share?

Versus or CSTV is an option. Versus might be a better option since it is also run by Comcast. Sign up for ten games a year on Versus and have them sublet five out to CSTV. Versus gets to keep the conference championship game. Its no different than the deal that the conference has with ESPN and maybe it would mean no more weeknight games.

CSTV does some regional syndication as they now own the A-10 syndication network. They could try to line up a package for games in MAC markets.

mattsarz Wrote:

notauser Wrote:MWC.net is 50% owned by CSTV & 50% MWC.

The MWC has no equity in the mtn. It is a 50-50 split between CSTV and Comcast.

The channel is built specifically for the MWC. Why would they want to share?

Versus or CSTV is an option. Versus might be a better option since it is also run by Comcast. Sign up for ten games a year on Versus and have them sublet five out to CSTV. Versus gets to keep the conference championship game. Its no different than the deal that the conference has with ESPN and maybe it would mean no more weeknight games.

CSTV does some regional syndication as they now own the A-10 syndication network. They could try to line up a package for games in MAC markets.

I'd rather not have any deals with channels I've never heard of, unless they are really opening their wallet.