BE new TV and what it means

Harry · February 21, 2013

NBC’s proposed deal is a decrease from the $33 million or so ESPN
currently pays for the conference’s first-tier TV rights, and it’s also a
staggering slide from the $150 million-per-year offer made by ESPN in
2011.

The Big East’s current financial embarrassment comes courtesy of the
conference leaders, including then-commissioner John Marinatto, who
turned down that whopping nine-year, $1.4 billion ESPN offer. Marinatto
and other administrators felt going to the open market would net the Big
East a better deal by forcing networks to bid against each other.

The gamble backfired when ESPN yanked its offer off the table and no
other networks came running for the conference’s TV rights. Without a
new arrangement in place, the Big East provided little income security
to its member schools, which immediately became prime targets for
poaching by other conferences. The ACC, as a result, will soon be the
new home of four former Big East schools; the Big Ten and Big 12 each
netted one.

Not only has the Big East lost the vast majority of its competitive
teams in both football and basketball, but the conference will also give
up its automatic qualification to a BCS bowl once college football’s
new playoff system is implemented in 2014. That means it will soon be
much more difficult for the Big East to build upon its television
revenue with wealthy bowl game payouts and revenue earned through the
NCAA basketball tournament (the Big East has traditionally been the top
earner from tournament play).

Assuming the Big East takes the deals offered by CBS and NBC – and
really, what other choice is there? – the conference is looking at
around $30 million or so in annual TV revenue. That’s not too much
better than small fish like Conference USA ($16 million/year) or the
Mountain West ($8 million/year), and those two conferences have
previously discussed a merger that would rapidly close the gap.

The struggling conference appears to be accepting its new
middle-class status with grace, and there are some silver linings to be
had – commissioner Mike Aresco is seeking to maximize the conference’s exposure,

so a deal that offers access to both NBC and the NBC Sports Network may actually be

preferable to one with ESPN.

But for a conference that was recently the nation’s premier
basketball power, fighting to simply stay relevant is a long way to
fall.

Read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2013/02/21/what-the-big-easts-new-tv-deals-mean-for-the-conferences-future/