Seems like ESPN or CBS doesn't really need the inventory in football. That leaves Fox or NBC for football which really needs games. It would be nice to sell basketball rights to ESPN and FB to fox or NBC.

My guess is the total worth will be $10 million per school.

(05-25-2012 07:35 AM)KNIGHTTIME Wrote:  Seems like ESPN or CBS doesn't really need the inventory in football. That leaves Fox or NBC for football which really needs games. It would be nice to sell basketball rights to ESPN and FB to fox or NBC.

My guess is the total worth will be $10 million per school.

There is no legal reason why basketball and football rights could not be sold separately. Whether any network would want to buy them that way is another question.

Personally, i like the idea for the reason you give: Big East basketball is valuable to ESPN while our football might not be, so they might be willing to pay more for it than say NBC would, whereas the reverse is true for NBC, and the total payout might be higher than if we have to bundle everything for a single network.

But you can still offer them together, and wind up with the same situation, where two networks split the package, if their interests lie in that direction. Assuming media consultants actually did advise the BE to combine FB and BB to get better offers, then I'd go with that approach.

I think that politics will favor a split contract. There's little enough trust and common interest between, say, Villanova and SDSU that in a combined contract, both sides will tend to suspect the other side of stealing "their" money.

Second, the basketball side will tend to value exposure on ESPN, while the football side will tend to value playing on Saturday afternoons/nights.

So unless the media consultants are persuasive that a unified deal means a LOT more money, I think the Big East package gets sliced and diced and sold off piece by piece.

And third, now that I think about it, the experience of the last year plus will mean that the continuing Big East schools will want to have some insurance in case of another breakdown in relations with ESPN.

Pulling stuff out of my @$$, I'll speculate wildly:

Big East football
One game a week on FoxSports1, one game a week on NBC-SN. (Alternating picks)
The rest get packaged to local outlets, so that, say, SNY or WWOR-TV gets 8-9 Rutgers games plus another Big East game for a double-header. The Astro's cable channel gets 8-9 Houston games, plus the other half of a double-header. Repeat for Tampa, Orlando, San Diego, etc.

Big East basketball
ESPN gets the Big East Tournament.
NBC (over the air) gets the first 20 basketball games.
NBC-SN and ESPN alternate picks for the next 40.
NBC-SN gets as many of the rest as they want, @ $100,000 each.

(05-25-2012 07:35 AM)KNIGHTTIME Wrote:  Seems like ESPN or CBS doesn't really need the inventory in football. That leaves Fox or NBC for football which really needs games. It would be nice to sell basketball rights to ESPN and FB to fox or NBC.

My guess is the total worth will be $10 million per school.

Both the Pac-12 and the Big 12 have a shared contract with ESPN & FOX.

SEC has a shared contract with ESPN and CBS.

Wouldn't be surprised if the Big East ends up a shared contract as well...as everyone just saw what happens when you only have ONE TV Partner (ACC's with ESPN) as that seems to be the worst when it comes to renegotiations.

Yes it is possible, but not likely.

Perhaps a good plan would be to sell Tier 1 basketball rights to ESPN, and Tier 2 rights to basketball rights to Fox/CBS/NBC, while selling Tier 1 football rights to NBC/FOX/CBS and Tier 2 football rights to ESPN/NBC/FOX/CBS.

Obviously, this is all supposition, and it will depend a lot on what the conference front office and the networks themselves want, but I can see a lot of benefit to it for all involved, and with a good negotiator I'm sure the total amounts brought in could be equal to, or possibly even surpass, what would be earned if they were sold as a package.

(05-25-2012 08:21 AM)Delin Wrote:  Perhaps a good plan would be to sell Tier 1 basketball rights to ESPN, and Tier 2 rights to basketball rights to Fox/CBS/NBC, while selling Tier 1 football rights to NBC/FOX/CBS and Tier 2 football rights to ESPN/NBC/FOX/CBS.

Obviously, this is all supposition, and it will depend a lot on what the conference front office and the networks themselves want, but I can see a lot of benefit to it for all involved, and with a good negotiator I'm sure the total amounts brought in could be equal to, or possibly even surpass, what would be earned if they were sold as a package.

2 general reasons why most conferences sign with more than 1 network:

1) Combined bids from at least two networks end up to be worth more $$$ vs a whole package bid by just network.

2) More exposure, more time slots, more games...as adding a 2nd network usually means more exposure/more games, especially for Tier 2 or 3 type games (in football AND basketball).

I don't think ESPN is ready to lose the Big East tournament

(05-25-2012 07:38 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-25-2012 07:35 AM)KNIGHTTIME Wrote:  Seems like ESPN or CBS doesn't really need the inventory in football. That leaves Fox or NBC for football which really needs games. It would be nice to sell basketball rights to ESPN and FB to fox or NBC.

My guess is the total worth will be $10 million per school.

There is no legal reason why basketball and football rights could not be sold separately. Whether any network would want to buy them that way is another question.

Personally, i like the idea for the reason you give: Big East basketball is valuable to ESPN while our football might not be, so they might be willing to pay more for it than say NBC would, whereas the reverse is true for NBC, and the total payout might be higher than if we have to bundle everything for a single network.

This makes sense to me.

(05-25-2012 07:35 AM)KNIGHTTIME Wrote:  Seems like ESPN or CBS doesn't really need the inventory in football. That leaves Fox or NBC for football which really needs games. It would be nice to sell basketball rights to ESPN and FB to fox or NBC.

My guess is the total worth will be $10 million per school.

Right now our FB and BBall are separate contracts. The BBall contract has a year more to go before it expires though I don't think that affects our negotiations.

Also you want some sort if FB arrangement with espn just so you have some presence on the world wide leader. I know our Houston and smu friends loved being on game day last year.

(05-25-2012 08:41 AM)KnightLight Wrote:  

(05-25-2012 08:21 AM)Delin Wrote:  Perhaps a good plan would be to sell Tier 1 basketball rights to ESPN, and Tier 2 rights to basketball rights to Fox/CBS/NBC, while selling Tier 1 football rights to NBC/FOX/CBS and Tier 2 football rights to ESPN/NBC/FOX/CBS.

Obviously, this is all supposition, and it will depend a lot on what the conference front office and the networks themselves want, but I can see a lot of benefit to it for all involved, and with a good negotiator I'm sure the total amounts brought in could be equal to, or possibly even surpass, what would be earned if they were sold as a package.

2 general reasons why most conferences sign with more than 1 network:

1) Combined bids from at least two networks end up to be worth more $$$ vs a whole package bid by just network.

2) More exposure, more time slots, more games...as adding a 2nd network usually means more exposure/more games, especially for Tier 2 or 3 type games (in football AND basketball).

Agreed. ESPN is a good partner over the long haul. They would not exist if not for the Big East hoops (ESPN was a Connecticut cable network for Connecticut fans originally). Even if you only sell a few football games to ESPN, they will still want the choices of hoops games. The bulk of each can go to a secondary network like NBC, which needs qualtity at this point.