ESPN is rumored to pay BYU $7M a year for the rights to its home games.

Last year, ESPN televised 5 BYU home games, and those games drew 5.19M households. Essentially, ESPN paid BYU $1.35 for every household it delivered.

Last year, 28.3M viewers watched current American schools over 34 games under contract. I did not double count conference games.

If we were paid the same per household delivered as BYU, our TV contract would be worth $38.25M last year.

ESPN got quite the deal on us. But it also shows that we aren't in line for bump from $20M a year to $70M a year. More like $40M a year.

I would imagine that the average viewer in the AAC is likely to spend more $$ on the products advertised compared to BYU fans. Just a totally, uninformed speculation. Do BYU fans buy Iphones, Budweiser, Mt. Dew, etc.? Probably not the bud and dew. I have no clue how advertising works, so I'm not going to suggest that as a reason for more $$, just an interesting thought.

How would y'all feel about bringing BYU in under their current contract which lets them make $7M/year but also increases the value to 4 away games? With a national brand like Army (I feel like a broken freakin record), I'd guess they would bump the ratings up to put us in that 5M-6m/year range..

As it stands though, I believe being paid the same as BYU would be totally fair....it would be nice to at least get an even 4m/team..

(06-11-2014 02:01 AM)CougarRed Wrote:  ESPN is rumored to pay BYU $7M a year for the rights to its home games.

Last year, ESPN televised 5 BYU home games, and those games drew 5.19M households. Essentially, ESPN paid BYU $1.35 for every household it delivered.

Last year, 28.3M viewers watched current American schools over 34 games under contract. I did not double count conference games.

If we were paid the same per household delivered as BYU, our TV contract would be worth $38.25M last year.

ESPN got quite the deal on us. But it also shows that we aren't in line for bump from $20M a year to $70M a year. More like $40M a year.

All of BYU's ESPN televised games were on ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU. If you just looked at the AAC's games broadcast on the same networks we had comparable viewership. The AAC performed extremely well considering the amount of games broadcast on ESPN News not to mention the performance in Basketball which is included in our rights fees. The AAC deal is incredibly profitable for ESPN and as long as we maintain our current level of performance we should be able to get to that $70M a year level and maybe more.

(06-11-2014 03:11 AM)ncbeta Wrote:  I would imagine that the average viewer in the AAC is likely to spend more $$ on the products advertised compared to BYU fans. Just a totally, uninformed speculation. Do BYU fans buy Iphones, Budweiser, Mt. Dew, etc.? Probably not the bud and dew. I have no clue how advertising works, so I'm not going to suggest that as a reason for more $$, just an interesting thought.

How would y'all feel about bringing BYU in under their current contract which lets them make $7M/year but also increases the value to 4 away games? With a national brand like Army (I feel like a broken freakin record), I'd guess they would bump the ratings up to put us in that 5M-6m/year range..

As it stands though, I believe being paid the same as BYU would be totally fair....it would be nice to at least get an even 4m/team..

I think as long as they are pulling in 18-49 demographic with byu games it works. They still buy stuff but probably not exactly the same items.

(06-11-2014 02:01 AM)CougarRed Wrote:  ESPN is rumored to pay BYU $7M a year for the rights to its home games.

Utah newspaper noted shortly after the contract was signed that this is what BYU gets paid for their home games:

$1.2 Million for ESPN Games

$1 Million for ESPN2 Games

$800,000 for ESPNU Games

Last Year, BYU had these home games covered by ESPN Networks:

ESPN: 1 ($1.2 Million)
ESPN2: 2 ($2 Million)
ESPNU: 2 ($1.6 Million)
----------------------
$4.8 Million

NOTE: BYU owns the TV rights 1 one home game per year for live telecast on BYUTV (usually a game vs a Div I-AA team)

(06-11-2014 07:12 AM)KnightLight Wrote:  

(06-11-2014 02:01 AM)CougarRed Wrote:  ESPN is rumored to pay BYU $7M a year for the rights to its home games.

Utah newspaper noted shortly after the contract was signed that this is what BYU gets paid for their home games:

$1.2 Million for ESPN Games
$1 Million for ESPN2 Games
$800,000 for ESPNU Games

Well, we have 28 games a year on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU. This does not include our Tier 2 rights (some shown on ESPNews, some sold to CBSSports).

Seems like $20M for those 28 games + all the Tier 2 games is significantly less than what BYU is getting paid.

(06-11-2014 02:01 AM)CougarRed Wrote:  ESPN is rumored to pay BYU $7M a year for the rights to its home games.

Last year, ESPN televised 5 BYU home games, and those games drew 5.19M households. Essentially, ESPN paid BYU $1.35 for every household it delivered.

Last year, 28.3M viewers watched current American schools over 34 games under contract. I did not double count conference games.

If we were paid the same per household delivered as BYU, our TV contract would be worth $38.25M last year.

ESPN got quite the deal on us. But it also shows that we aren't in line for bump from $20M a year to $70M a year. More like $40M a year.

I thing you also have to consider is what Navy does to those ratings when they come on board. They are a big draw which could tilt the needle in our favor. I mean the the Army/Navy game alone is worth probably 10 million. Throw in the Notre Dame game and the numbers climb. Now I have no idea what will be included in our deal in regards to Navy but everything has said it would be revenue neutral for Navy which would indicate the league is in store for a big bump or Navy isn't including all of their content. Considering how Boise went down I would assume Navy is including everything but I guess we shall see. It will be interesting to see what it actually goes too since there has been a ton of debate on here about what the conference is worth.

(06-11-2014 08:50 AM)PT_american Wrote:  

(06-11-2014 02:01 AM)CougarRed Wrote:  ESPN is rumored to pay BYU $7M a year for the rights to its home games.

Last year, ESPN televised 5 BYU home games, and those games drew 5.19M households. Essentially, ESPN paid BYU $1.35 for every household it delivered.

Last year, 28.3M viewers watched current American schools over 34 games under contract. I did not double count conference games.

If we were paid the same per household delivered as BYU, our TV contract would be worth $38.25M last year.

ESPN got quite the deal on us. But it also shows that we aren't in line for bump from $20M a year to $70M a year. More like $40M a year.

I thing you also have to consider is what Navy does to those ratings when they come on board. They are a big draw which could tilt the needle in our favor. I mean the the Army/Navy game alone is worth probably 10 million. Throw in the Notre Dame game and the numbers climb. Now I have no idea what will be included in our deal in regards to Navy but everything has said it would be revenue neutral for Navy which would indicate the league is in store for a big bump or Navy isn't including all of their content. Considering how Boise went down I would assume Navy is including everything but I guess we shall see. It will be interesting to see what it actually goes too since there has been a ton of debate on here about what the conference is worth.

There will be a ratings bump with Navy games for sure. They join in our look-in period with espn. It would almost be better to negotiate a year after Navy joins so you get updated tv numbers for the whole year.

It would be a game changer getting Army and BYU on board for ratings purposes.

I wonder if anyone's done a breakdown of viewers per dollar (or dollars per viewer) on the P5 contracts.

(06-11-2014 08:55 AM)KNIGHTTIME Wrote:  

(06-11-2014 08:50 AM)PT_american Wrote:  

(06-11-2014 02:01 AM)CougarRed Wrote:  ESPN is rumored to pay BYU $7M a year for the rights to its home games.

Last year, ESPN televised 5 BYU home games, and those games drew 5.19M households. Essentially, ESPN paid BYU $1.35 for every household it delivered.

Last year, 28.3M viewers watched current American schools over 34 games under contract. I did not double count conference games.

If we were paid the same per household delivered as BYU, our TV contract would be worth $38.25M last year.

ESPN got quite the deal on us. But it also shows that we aren't in line for bump from $20M a year to $70M a year. More like $40M a year.

I thing you also have to consider is what Navy does to those ratings when they come on board. They are a big draw which could tilt the needle in our favor. I mean the the Army/Navy game alone is worth probably 10 million. Throw in the Notre Dame game and the numbers climb. Now I have no idea what will be included in our deal in regards to Navy but everything has said it would be revenue neutral for Navy which would indicate the league is in store for a big bump or Navy isn't including all of their content. Considering how Boise went down I would assume Navy is including everything but I guess we shall see. It will be interesting to see what it actually goes too since there has been a ton of debate on here about what the conference is worth.

There will be a ratings bump with Navy games for sure. They join in our look-in period with espn. It would almost be better to negotiate a year after Navy joins so you get updated tv numbers for the whole year.

It would be a game changer getting Army and BYU on board for ratings purposes.

I have no knowledge outside of what some people have indicated on here but they implied the look-in was after the 3rd year in our deal which would be after Navy's first year in the conference. So they should have some good metrics regarding rating. Of course no one really knows if the deal had predetermined metrics that would result in a bump or if the look in was actually a renegotiation to lengthen the deal. Will be interesting to see what happens when that time comes around.

(06-11-2014 08:23 AM)CougarRed Wrote:  

(06-11-2014 07:12 AM)KnightLight Wrote:  

(06-11-2014 02:01 AM)CougarRed Wrote:  ESPN is rumored to pay BYU $7M a year for the rights to its home games.

Utah newspaper noted shortly after the contract was signed that this is what BYU gets paid for their home games:

$1.2 Million for ESPN Games
$1 Million for ESPN2 Games
$800,000 for ESPNU Games

Well, we have 28 games a year on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU. This does not include our Tier 2 rights (some shown on ESPNews, some sold to CBSSports).

Seems like $20M for those 28 games + all the Tier 2 games is significantly less than what BYU is getting paid.

Believe everyone knew that...but BYU obviously doesn't share in conf bowl revenue and/or Conf NCAA Hoop Credits like AAC teams do.

It was mainly BYU's new TV deal with ESPN that kept them from joining the AAC for football only.

(06-11-2014 08:55 AM)KNIGHTTIME Wrote:  There will be a ratings bump with Navy games for sure. They join in our look-in period with espn. It would almost be better to negotiate a year after Navy joins so you get updated tv numbers for the whole year.

It would be a game changer getting Army and BYU on board for ratings purposes.

Navy will be responsible for two bumps... a small one during the look-in, in which their road conference games add viewers and value to current members home games... then a second time, when Navy home games are rolled into the contract in 2018.

I still think the desired end game is the American with the 2 or 3 of the academies and BYU to get a nice bump in TV money to the $5-million plus range per member, I've been saying that for sometime now.

I'm also fairly certain it'll be a partnership between ESPN and CBS... CBS will end up paying to have access to the academies, by creating an over-the-air series of games on CBS for the American; while ESPN will pay more for the creation of a Championship Game, consolidating properties into one conference (BYU), to get a share of the Army-Navy game, and to get out from under some of the station/appearance guarantees of the current deal.

(06-11-2014 03:11 AM)ncbeta Wrote:  I would imagine that the average viewer in the AAC is likely to spend more $$ on the products advertised compared to BYU fans. Just a totally, uninformed speculation. Do BYU fans buy Iphones, Budweiser, Mt. Dew, etc.? Probably not the bud and dew. I have no clue how advertising works, so I'm not going to suggest that as a reason for more $$, just an interesting thought.

On the one hand, you're correct that beer and soft drink advertising isn't very effective on a Mormon audience. On the other hand, Mormons have the highest income and educational levels of any Christian group and BYU specifically has a disproportionate number of high income alums, so that's a net positive for advertising from a pure discretionary income standpoint for bigger ticket items like iPhones and luxury cars. I would imagine the BYU audience looks like the average golf TV viewing audience that doesn't drink beer or Coke, which is actually pretty valuable based on income.

Still, as someone else pointed out, the age of the audience (the younger, the better) is by far the greatest factor for advertising dollars (more than income, educational levels, religious preferences, gender, race, etc.). The age 18-49 rating is what networks really care about (the total viewership number that networks use in press releases is actually irrelevant - viewers over 50, unless they're really really really rich like the golf viewing audience mentioned earlier, are effectively worthless with respect to advertising revenue) and the biggest advertising premiums of all are for the age 18-34 rating.

(06-11-2014 09:14 AM)PT_american Wrote:  

(06-11-2014 08:55 AM)KNIGHTTIME Wrote:  

(06-11-2014 08:50 AM)PT_american Wrote:  

(06-11-2014 02:01 AM)CougarRed Wrote:  ESPN is rumored to pay BYU $7M a year for the rights to its home games.

Last year, ESPN televised 5 BYU home games, and those games drew 5.19M households. Essentially, ESPN paid BYU $1.35 for every household it delivered.

Last year, 28.3M viewers watched current American schools over 34 games under contract. I did not double count conference games.

If we were paid the same per household delivered as BYU, our TV contract would be worth $38.25M last year.

ESPN got quite the deal on us. But it also shows that we aren't in line for bump from $20M a year to $70M a year. More like $40M a year.

I thing you also have to consider is what Navy does to those ratings when they come on board. They are a big draw which could tilt the needle in our favor. I mean the the Army/Navy game alone is worth probably 10 million. Throw in the Notre Dame game and the numbers climb. Now I have no idea what will be included in our deal in regards to Navy but everything has said it would be revenue neutral for Navy which would indicate the league is in store for a big bump or Navy isn't including all of their content. Considering how Boise went down I would assume Navy is including everything but I guess we shall see. It will be interesting to see what it actually goes too since there has been a ton of debate on here about what the conference is worth.

There will be a ratings bump with Navy games for sure. They join in our look-in period with espn. It would almost be better to negotiate a year after Navy joins so you get updated tv numbers for the whole year.

It would be a game changer getting Army and BYU on board for ratings purposes.

I have no knowledge outside of what some people have indicated on here but they implied the look-in was after the 3rd year in our deal which would be after Navy's first year in the conference. So they should have some good metrics regarding rating. Of course no one really knows if the deal had predetermined metrics that would result in a bump or if the look in was actually a renegotiation to lengthen the deal. Will be interesting to see what happens when that time comes around.

You're right about the end of the 3 year. If the contract was negotiated in the look in period, our contract would be extended. There is no benefit for espn to give us money for nothing.

(06-11-2014 02:01 AM)CougarRed Wrote:  ESPN is rumored to pay BYU $7M a year for the rights to its home games.

Last year, ESPN televised 5 BYU home games, and those games drew 5.19M households. Essentially, ESPN paid BYU $1.35 for every household it delivered.

Last year, 28.3M viewers watched current American schools over 34 games under contract. I did not double count conference games.

If we were paid the same per household delivered as BYU, our TV contract would be worth $38.25M last year.

ESPN got quite the deal on us. But it also shows that we aren't in line for bump from $20M a year to $70M a year. More like $40M a year.

5.19 for all games! That's not a lot of viewers especially how BYU claims they have all this national following.

At $20 million per year, some one will bid more if the AAC continues its performance.

(06-11-2014 09:34 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  On the one hand, you're correct that beer and soft drink advertising isn't very effective on a Mormon audience. On the other hand, Mormons have the highest income and educational levels of any Christian group and BYU specifically has a disproportionate number of high income alums, so that's a net positive for advertising from a pure discretionary income standpoint for bigger ticket items like iPhones and luxury cars. I would imagine the BYU audience looks like the average golf TV viewing audience that doesn't drink beer or Coke, which is actually pretty valuable based on income.

Still, as someone else pointed out, the age of the audience (the younger, the better) is by far the greatest factor for advertising dollars (more than income, educational levels, religious preferences, gender, race, etc.). The age 18-49 rating is what networks really care about (the total viewership number that networks use in press releases is actually irrelevant - viewers over 50, unless they're really really really rich like the golf viewing audience mentioned earlier, are effectively worthless with respect to advertising revenue) and the biggest advertising premiums of all are for the age 18-34 rating.

As usual - thoughtful and interesting post Frank. Any ideas 'why' on the bolded above? Over 50s probably have the most 'disposable income' of all those age groups. Not 'taken in' by the advertisers? Already have a lifetime of 'stuff?' Ideas / research for this?

(06-11-2014 09:37 AM)KNIGHTTIME Wrote:  

(06-11-2014 09:14 AM)PT_american Wrote:  

(06-11-2014 08:55 AM)KNIGHTTIME Wrote:  

(06-11-2014 08:50 AM)PT_american Wrote:  

(06-11-2014 02:01 AM)CougarRed Wrote:  ESPN is rumored to pay BYU $7M a year for the rights to its home games.

Last year, ESPN televised 5 BYU home games, and those games drew 5.19M households. Essentially, ESPN paid BYU $1.35 for every household it delivered.

Last year, 28.3M viewers watched current American schools over 34 games under contract. I did not double count conference games.

If we were paid the same per household delivered as BYU, our TV contract would be worth $38.25M last year.

ESPN got quite the deal on us. But it also shows that we aren't in line for bump from $20M a year to $70M a year. More like $40M a year.

I thing you also have to consider is what Navy does to those ratings when they come on board. They are a big draw which could tilt the needle in our favor. I mean the the Army/Navy game alone is worth probably 10 million. Throw in the Notre Dame game and the numbers climb. Now I have no idea what will be included in our deal in regards to Navy but everything has said it would be revenue neutral for Navy which would indicate the league is in store for a big bump or Navy isn't including all of their content. Considering how Boise went down I would assume Navy is including everything but I guess we shall see. It will be interesting to see what it actually goes too since there has been a ton of debate on here about what the conference is worth.

There will be a ratings bump with Navy games for sure. They join in our look-in period with espn. It would almost be better to negotiate a year after Navy joins so you get updated tv numbers for the whole year.

It would be a game changer getting Army and BYU on board for ratings purposes.

I have no knowledge outside of what some people have indicated on here but they implied the look-in was after the 3rd year in our deal which would be after Navy's first year in the conference. So they should have some good metrics regarding rating. Of course no one really knows if the deal had predetermined metrics that would result in a bump or if the look in was actually a renegotiation to lengthen the deal. Will be interesting to see what happens when that time comes around.

You're right about the end of the 3 year. If the contract was negotiated in the look in period, our contract would be extended. There is no benefit for espn to give us money for nothing.

I am saying it could have been written into the original contract. For instance if you average 500k we bump you to 2.5 million a team if you average 750k we bump you to 3 million a team. I honestly have no idea but since the collection of schools had little clarity around what they would draw in viewers collectively they could have had predetermined benchmarks written into the contract. I of course have no actually knowledge about what the contract actually says.

(06-11-2014 10:02 AM)PT_american Wrote:  

(06-11-2014 09:37 AM)KNIGHTTIME Wrote:  

(06-11-2014 09:14 AM)PT_american Wrote:  

(06-11-2014 08:55 AM)KNIGHTTIME Wrote:  

(06-11-2014 08:50 AM)PT_american Wrote:  I thing you also have to consider is what Navy does to those ratings when they come on board. They are a big draw which could tilt the needle in our favor. I mean the the Army/Navy game alone is worth probably 10 million. Throw in the Notre Dame game and the numbers climb. Now I have no idea what will be included in our deal in regards to Navy but everything has said it would be revenue neutral for Navy which would indicate the league is in store for a big bump or Navy isn't including all of their content. Considering how Boise went down I would assume Navy is including everything but I guess we shall see. It will be interesting to see what it actually goes too since there has been a ton of debate on here about what the conference is worth.

There will be a ratings bump with Navy games for sure. They join in our look-in period with espn. It would almost be better to negotiate a year after Navy joins so you get updated tv numbers for the whole year.

It would be a game changer getting Army and BYU on board for ratings purposes.

I have no knowledge outside of what some people have indicated on here but they implied the look-in was after the 3rd year in our deal which would be after Navy's first year in the conference. So they should have some good metrics regarding rating. Of course no one really knows if the deal had predetermined metrics that would result in a bump or if the look in was actually a renegotiation to lengthen the deal. Will be interesting to see what happens when that time comes around.

You're right about the end of the 3 year. If the contract was negotiated in the look in period, our contract would be extended. There is no benefit for espn to give us money for nothing.

I am saying it could have been written into the original contract. For instance if you average 500k we bump you to 2.5 million a team if you average 750k we bump you to 3 million a team. I honestly have no idea but since the collection of schools had little clarity around what they would draw in viewers collectively they could have had predetermined benchmarks written into the contract. I of course have no actually knowledge about what the contract actually says.

Blaudschun made some references to that type of triggers being part of the NBC agreement during the negotiation period, however, in the year since the AAC signed with ESPN, Aresco has never mentioned performance triggers. I doubt any such thing exists in the current media deal. My guess is they were discussed, but never made it in the deal.

(06-11-2014 09:57 AM)TIGERCITY Wrote:  

(06-11-2014 09:34 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  On the one hand, you're correct that beer and soft drink advertising isn't very effective on a Mormon audience. On the other hand, Mormons have the highest income and educational levels of any Christian group and BYU specifically has a disproportionate number of high income alums, so that's a net positive for advertising from a pure discretionary income standpoint for bigger ticket items like iPhones and luxury cars. I would imagine the BYU audience looks like the average golf TV viewing audience that doesn't drink beer or Coke, which is actually pretty valuable based on income.

Still, as someone else pointed out, the age of the audience (the younger, the better) is by far the greatest factor for advertising dollars (more than income, educational levels, religious preferences, gender, race, etc.). The age 18-49 rating is what networks really care about (the total viewership number that networks use in press releases is actually irrelevant - viewers over 50, unless they're really really really rich like the golf viewing audience mentioned earlier, are effectively worthless with respect to advertising revenue) and the biggest advertising premiums of all are for the age 18-34 rating.

As usual - thoughtful and interesting post Frank. Any ideas 'why' on the bolded above? Over 50s probably have the most 'disposable income' of all those age groups. Not 'taken in' by the advertisers? Already have a lifetime of 'stuff?' Ideas / research for this?

I also find that interesting. Prior to age 50, my dad's spending habits were dictated by needs rather than wants (ie college tuition for me and my sister, mortgage, etc) while now that he's over 50 his home is paid off and his kids are on their own and he spends my inheritance quite freely... bought two new cars in 2013 and takes LOTS of trips (I won't even get into the very profitable pharmaceutical industry, which advertises to older men relentlessly during sporting events). I would think that he's not alone and that his type is worth lots to advertisers.

Not disagreeing with Frank here, as I've heard many times that they covet the younger demographic. I'm just not sure why.