Report: Big Ten, ESPN agree to new media rights deal
The Big Ten-ESPN partnership will carry on after all.
After things seemed up in the air for the longtime relationship in recent months, Sports Business Journal reported Monday that ESPN will buy the second half of the league’s media rights package for “an average of $190 million per year over six years.” Fox Sports reportedly obtained the other half of the league’s rights back in April at a rate of $240 million per year.
Those two sums – coupled with CBS Sports $10 million basketball-only affiliation – brings the Big Ten’s total haul to $2.64 billion (that is Billion with a “B”) over six years. The deal, SBJ reported, “does not include Big Ten Network’s package of rights, which runs to 2031-32.” Fox Sports owns 51 percent of BTN.
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The new deal will go into effect next fall. ESPN’s current deal with the Big Ten pays the league $100 million per year over a 10-year span.
According to Sports Business Journal, some folks in the sports business industry “expected” ESPN to “take a pass on Big Ten rights” to “save costs” after the company experienced layoffs over the past year. The Chicago Tribune reported the same in May, but added that some “industry sources” believed Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany was “determined to keep ESPN in the fold.” The latter proved to be true, and now the league has nearly tripled the value of its rights package.
The six-year agreements with ESPN and CBS are being vetted by lawyers, and Big Ten officials hope to have official announcements for its entire media package ready by its annual football kickoff luncheon July 26.
The $2.64 billion deals with Fox, ESPN and CBS average $440 million per year and nearly triple the amount ESPN and CBS had been paying for the same programming. ESPN signed a 10-year deal worth $100 million annually in 2006 — a payout that increased to $150 million this year due to the addition of Nebraska, Maryland and Rutgers to the conference. CBS paid an average of around $6 million for its current basketball-only deal.
ESPN and Fox Sports are expected to broadcast “around 25 football games and 50 basketball games each year.” Notably, Fox Sports now has “game selection advantages over ESPN” (hello, Ohio State v. Michigan) and will carry the Big Ten football championship game “every season.”
Here’s how the selection process works, per SBJ:
The difference between the two packages is that Fox Sports will carry the Big Ten football championship game every season, which is a strong draw each December. Fox also will have game selection advantages over ESPN, which almost certainly means that the coveted Michigan-Ohio State rivalry will move to Fox most years.
Before each season, the networks will pick the weeks where they get first choice of games. Fox will have the first pick every year; ESPN will have the second; Fox will have the third, and so on.
ESPN will carry Big Ten football games on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2. ESPNU will see far fewer Big Ten games than it has in the past.
ESPN President John Skipper said publicly that the network would like to continue its partnership with the league. The April news of the Fox deal reportedly spurred action from Skipper. Less than two months later, a deal was reached.
Soon after news of Fox’s deal leaked in April, however, ESPN President John Skipper called Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany and said he wanted to re-engage. After a flurry of phone calls and emails, Skipper and Delany reached a broad agreement on price. John Wildhack, ESPN executive vice president of programming and production, and Burke Magnus, executive vice president of programming and scheduling, shook hands on an agreement with Delany and conference lawyer John Barrett during a May 19 meeting at the conference’s New York office.
The deals were finalized June 7-8 when executives from ESPN and Fox were holed up in a conference room at the Big Ten’s Chicago offices over two days to hammer out details on how each package would look. Wildhack and Magnus headed up Bristol’s group; Fox Sports executive vice presidents Larry Jones and Bill Wanger and senior vice president Mike Mulvihill were there for Fox. Delany represented the Big Ten, and Big Ten Network President Mark Silverman represented BTN.
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Sam Cooper is a writer for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!
