Here’s part of the story from TBJ…I’ll have much more on this story, and it’s impact on the conference, later today.
ESPN won the TV rights to ACC football and basketball in a bidding competition with Fox Sports that was surprisingly close, industry sources say, and as a result made the conference several million more dollars.
The back-and-forth bidding, which reached its final stages last week at the league’s spring meetings in Amelia Island, Fla., drove up ESPN’s rights fee from initial projections of about $120 million a year to $155 million, sources said, providing the ACC with more than double the revenue it was receiving from its previous football and basketball contract.
Read more: ESPN outbids Fox for ACC television rights – Triangle Business Journal:
Loading ...
May 17th, 2010 at 10:47 am
Will conference shuffling and realignment affect this deal for the next decade? Can ESPN opt out of the deal like the NCAA did to CBS concerning the basketball package? If they can’t does that strengthen the ACC’s resolve in being able to keep all its member institutions monetarily happy when other conferences might start courting our schools? It is encouraging to see that the new deal did not lose money compared to the old deal but it still dwarfs what the SEC is bringing in.
May 17th, 2010 at 11:02 am
I would think that the biggest factor in the difference between the SEC money and the ACC package is SEC football being what it is.
May 17th, 2010 at 11:20 am
This results in ~4.1 million per school per year less than the SEC. Not including any sort of tax or however that mess works.
4.1 million isnt a huge difference, but its nothing to ignore.
May 17th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
providing the ACC with more than double the revenue it was receiving from its previous football and basketball contract.
This is huge wrt conference realignment. It might not be enough to thwart attempts from the SEC (if they decide to go east); but it should certainly help.
It’s even more amazing to get that much from a TV deal when ACC football hasn’t had anyone nationally significant for ages.
May 17th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
I am not sure of the details of both the ACC contract and the SEC contract but it seems to me the ACC came out ahead. The SEC contract was 2.25 billion over 15 years. Which comes out to be 150 million per year. In contrast the ACC deal equates to 155 million per year. This is obvious a better deal than the SEC. Am I missing something?
May 17th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
^ Per the article, the SEC gets $205 million a year : “That annual figure of $155 million dwarfs the average of $67 million the league was getting from its previous media deals, which expire at the end of the 2010-11 season, but falls well short of the $205 million a year that the SEC gets from its new 15-year deals with CBS and ESPN.”
May 17th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Not to downplay Fox’s coverage, but I am glad we are on ESPN. Like them or not, they are the industry leader and have the most channels in the most markets. Plus, I would hate to see them treat the ACC like they did hockey when they lost it – i.e. like it doesn’t exist. At least now the conference will benefit from the hype and NC State too – as long as we put a decent product on the field/court.
Personally, as someone living outside of the mid-Atlantic, ESPN provides much better coverage options. Even when we played on the Fox network before, they rarely showed the games down here, and when they did they were on tape delay, usually airing following a replay of a Florida game or something….
May 17th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
I guess I am compariing the ESPN deals and not including the CBS deal. I assume that since ABC owns ESPN then the ACC does not have a seperate contract with ABC.
May 17th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
CRAP! This means NCSU will be doomed to ESPN-U forever!!!!!
May 17th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
^Yes! It means more Perfect Brownie commercials during NC State athletic events.
May 17th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
WHo is Raycom associated with? As long as they have nothing to do with the ACC, I am happy.