(04-17-2018 11:28 AM)johnbragg Wrote: But you still got jack if you weren't one of the 50 or so teams that got to appear on TV, right?
Actually wait, that 50 estimate is low--I figured 12 weeks, 2 games a week, 2 teams per game = 48. But I have no idea how many regional games were televised.
This NY Times article from July 31st, 1981 is pretty fascinating. It reports on the new 1982-1985 college football TV deal signed that day with ABC and CBS. Some highlights:
1) The deal is for $264m for the four years, double what ABC had been paying, which was $31m a year.
2) The deal is hailed as a "major victory" for the NCAA, as it is expected to quell recent complaints by power schools, which were threatening to sign their own deal:
"This new agreement was a major victory for the N.C.A.A. and its executive director, Walter Byers, who is the primary negotiator in such matters for the association. A recent challenge to the N.C.A.A. and its television policies had been mounted by the College Football Association, whose 62 major football members threatened to negotiate their own contract with a network.
The N.C.A.A. appears to have lessened that threat by getting the richest television contract in college sports history."
Of course, as it turned out, the power schools were not quelled, and the last two years of this deal, 1984 and 1985, would actually later be voided by the courts.
3) Also, as a concession to the power schools, the deal now allowed a maximum of 3 TV appearances by a school, 2 national and 1 regional.
National games would now pay $1 million (escalating a little over the contract life), regional broadcasts $800,000 ... up from $300,000 for national and $210,000 for regional in the expiring 1981 contract.
So that means USC and Oklahoma got $210,000 each for that 1981 game (about $530,000 in today's money).
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/31/sport...works.html