Tune in to Change: Big East-ESPN TV deal changing complexion of college basketball

Brett Orzechowski, Register Staff

12/10/2006

The middle man was in place, but then again, after more than a quarter-century of conducting business the negotiation between the Big East Conference and ESPN was not the difficult part.

The result from taking a chance on something so revolutionary and complex remains the only unknown. Beginning next men

Good read. Please post up the two remaining articles when they come out. Thanks.

Thanks, Jackson.

A long, but worthwhile read.

Comments on the article, that will be long as well:

Quote:Brett Orzechowski, Register Staff

12/10/2006

The middle man was in place, but then again, after more than a quarter-century of conducting business the negotiation between the Big East Conference and ESPN was not the difficult part.

Considering the way ESPN has treated its original partner over the past decade its nice to have this article acknowledge that the Big East was the primary reason for that network's success, just as the network was the league's primary reason for success. Let's hope the loyalty the BE has shown ESPN continually throughout the years is fully reciprocated from this point onward.


[quote]When the two sides finished their new men

pitt83 Wrote:Good read. Please post up the two remaining articles when they come out. Thanks.

Yes This was an excellent article. I did catch 1 mistake, when the writer said that each bb school received $10 million dollars from the tv deal in 2005. I dont know what they received, but I knowit was'nt 410 million each from tv.

Quote:The five games CBS will televise nationally will also be broadcast on any one of the ESPN channels in your cable package. CBS also chooses which five to broadcast.

I interpret this to mean: All Big East Conference games on CBS will also be seen on an ESPN feed. This is nice to know if the the CBS game is split national.

TexanMark Wrote:

Quote:The five games CBS will televise nationally will also be broadcast on any one of the ESPN channels in your cable package. CBS also chooses which five to broadcast.

I interpret this to mean: All Big East Conference games on CBS will also be seen on an ESPN feed. This is nice to know if the the CBS game is split national.

I don't think so. I think this means that the matchups CBS chooses will likely be on ESPN. For example, UConn at Syracuse would be on CBS, and Syracuse at UConn might be on Big Monday.

Just a part of TV dictating how the Big East will schedule their conference games.

I think the article is good, but it tends to minimize the downside of the conference deal. Namely, it really makes it sound like the Big East have every conference game on ESPN/ESPN2. This is not true: although every game will be broadcasted on some ESPN channel (except for the CBS games), a bunch will be on ESPN Plus (regionally distributed), ESPNU (which many people don't have) or ESPN360 (which many people don't have and cannot get with their internet provider).

Don't get me wrong: the key games will be nationally broadcasted and that is huge. And there will be tons of BE programming on ESPN/ESPN2. But the article oversells it.

Quote:In June, the Big Ten and Fox announced they will start exclusively televising their conference programming nationally in 2007 on their own channel.

This is totally incorrect. The Big Ten will continue to have just as many games on ABC/ESPN/ESPN2 (football) and CBS/ESPN/ESPN2 (basketball) as previously. The Big Ten Network will merely take games that were otherwise on ESPNU/ESPN360/ESPN Plus and put them on the Big Ten Network. It's definately not the "exclusive" broadcast of the Big Ten games.

SideshowBob Wrote:I think the article is good, but it tends to minimize the downside of the conference deal. Namely, it really makes it sound like the Big East have every conference game on ESPN/ESPN2. This is not true: although every game will be broadcasted on some ESPN channel (except for the CBS games), a bunch will be on ESPN Plus (regionally distributed), ESPNU (which many people don't have) or ESPN360 (which many people don't have and cannot get with their internet provider).

Don't get me wrong: the key games will be nationally broadcasted and that is huge. And there will be tons of BE programming on ESPN/ESPN2. But the article oversells it.

Agreed. Although the article does state that it is the Big East's belief that both ESPNU and ESPN360 will have more national exposure before the current contract ends. ESPN has a habit of winning these wars with most cable companies.

Quote:

Quote:In June, the Big Ten and Fox announced they will start exclusively televising their conference programming nationally in 2007 on their own channel.

This is totally incorrect. The Big Ten will continue to have just as many games on ABC/ESPN/ESPN2 (football) and CBS/ESPN/ESPN2 (basketball) as previously. The Big Ten Network will merely take games that were otherwise on ESPNU/ESPN360/ESPN Plus and put them on the Big Ten Network. It's definately not the "exclusive" broadcast of the Big Ten games.

Yes. I don't think the author of the article thoroughly understood either contract. It will be interesting to see what happens with the Big Ten Network. If any conference can pull this off, it certainly is that conference.

Cheers,
Neil

Anyhow, I think this article really oversells the Big East's deal in being "unique" or "revelutionary". From what I can see, it's not either. It's certainly comprehensive, but it doesn't seem much different from deals that otehr conferences have had.

Specifically, the deal is remarkably similar to the last Big Ten deal. Under that deal (still in effect this season), every Big Ten conference game is broadcasted on some ESPN affiliate (ESPN/ESPN2/ESPN+/ESPNU/ESPN360) except for their games on CBS. A bunch of non-conferences games are also on the ESPN stations or CBS. Quite frankly, it's the same deal as this "breakthrough" Big East one. The difference between the deal is merely the quantity of games in the BE one: well, duh, it's a 16 team conference; there's simply more games that can be broadcasted. Interestingly, the number of Big Ten basketball games on ESPN/ESPN2 is actually increasing next season with their new deal (from 25 games/season now to 43 games/season -- this is conference and non-conference). You can see the details here.

From my cursory examination of the ACC, they seem to have pretty much the same deal, except their regional games are on Lincoln Financial/Jefferson Pilot instead of ESPN Plus. I guess that means they can't say "all out games are on ESPN's family of networks", but big deal. The Lincoln/Jefferson games are still available on Full Court.

What I'd really like to see is an analysis of things that really distinguish conference contracts. Namely:

1. Total number of games each on CBS, ESPN/ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN+, and ESPN360. This would distinguish between accessable and widespread outlets (CBS/ESPN/ESPN2) versus poorly distributed (ESPNU/ESPN360) or local (ESPN+) ones.

2. Number of times each team is broadcasted on CBS/ESPN/ESPN2 -- to control for conference size to see exposure for teams.

3. Number of times the top conference teams are on CBS/ESPN/ESPN2 -- to compare how elite teams are getting exposure

4. Amount of revenue per team from the TV deal

Every BCS conference payout at least 10 million dollars to each of their member until this deal make it possible for the BE to payout that much to football schools then it is not a good deal for us. For schools that have athletic budget of 20 million dollars it is the greatest thing to get all that exposure and want to consider themselves a