Does anyone have any idea what the Conf USA contract stipulates for BB and Football? I am curious, because the whole thing has always been a mystery to me. Sometimes for example, ECU would have a potentially good football match up within the conference and it was not on tv and other times we would play a Thursday night away road game on tv in an empty stadium with no conference ramifications at all. Who for example is the main contract holder, Fox? CBS? both? Also, didn't we used to have a contract with ESPN? I remember some kind of lawsuit between Conf USA and ESPN over broadcast rights but do not remember the specifics.

I used to have this all down, but to be honest I'm not sure what the membership changes did to it. For example, apparently the basketball exposure was better in previous years than it was this year. There's also the addition of Fox Sports 1 that added a previously unattached element to this equation.

To answer one of your questions, Fox and CBS have the first and second tier rights and both pay approximatley $7 million annually for the rights.

But it does appear that the establishment of FS1 and the membership caused some minor changes to the applicability of the TV exposure if not a change to the contract itself (which were told wasn't going to happen). So, perhaps they didn't change any language to the contract but the league made some additional concessions to keep the monetary value the same. Just not clear right now.

The answer to your broader question appears to be somewhat of a mystery only known to BB at this point.

Also, the deal with ESPN is for the C-USA FB Championship game only.

Sources tell me it sucks.

The contract is the pure pits! It pays little and we get even less exposure.

The FOX part of the contract is a minimum of 20 regular season football games per season, a minimum of 10 regular season men’s basketball games, and a minimum of five regular season women’s basketball games in addition to coverage of other C-USA sports.

Last I saw of CBS contract was they could choose up to 24 regular season football games.

What strategy do you think BB should use when the next contract is negotiated to get better coverage? Also, would you want ESPN to pick up the contract?

This is from the SportsBusiness Daily:

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journ...twork.aspx


The January 2011 dates are when the agreements were signed.

CONFERENCE USA

$42 million/5 years 2011-12 through 2015-16 Fox January 2011

$35 million/5-$37.5 million/5 years 2011-12 through 2015-16 CBS Sports Network January 2011

$22 million/5 years 2011-2015** ESPN January 2011


The following is the football game selection info from MattsarzSports:

http://mattsarzsports.com/Contract/GameL...ence=C-USA

C-USA Broadcast Schedule

Conference USA has three rights holders: ESPN, FOX Sports Media Group and CBS Sports Network.

FOX Sports Media Group will air at least 20 football games per season. Games can air on FOX Broadcasting, FOX Sports 1 or FSN with at least ten games to air on FOX Sports 1. It is unknown how many games CBS Sports Network will air, but their previous contract was for 24 games per season and allowed for games to be sublicensed to Comcast/Charter Sports South (CSS).

FOX will be able to select the top ten games from the conference. CBS Sports Network will then select the next ten, and FOX will then come back and select another ten games.

ESPN, to settle a lawsuit between the conference and the network, has the rights to the conference championship game.

After all TV contracts have been satisfied, additional games can be picked up for regional or national airings. FOX College Sports has picked up games after the main FOX package has been set.

All of C-USA's contracts expire after the 2015-16 athletic year.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I could not find the basketball game selection process for the conference.

and you can now scratch off the licensed games to CSS.

Fox actually aired 13 football games on FS1 and 31 games total, so they actually delivered more than they were contractually obligated to. This is why I think we could see Fox pick up some regional games. We'll see.

Either way, this is probably the most important aspect of Brit's job going forward. This is where he needs to earn that fat paycheck and we have two fiscal years left to help make his job easier.

(03-14-2014 01:43 PM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote:  This is from the SportsBusiness Daily:

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journ...twork.aspx


The January 2011 dates are when the agreements were signed.

CONFERENCE USA

$42 million/5 years 2011-12 through 2015-16 Fox January 2011

$35 million/5-$37.5 million/5 years 2011-12 through 2015-16 CBS Sports Network January 2011

$22 million/5 years 2011-2015** ESPN January 2011


The following is the football game selection info from MattsarzSports:

http://mattsarzsports.com/Contract/GameL...ence=C-USA

C-USA Broadcast Schedule

Conference USA has three rights holders: ESPN, FOX Sports Media Group and CBS Sports Network.

FOX Sports Media Group will air at least 20 football games per season. Games can air on FOX Broadcasting, FOX Sports 1 or FSN with at least ten games to air on FOX Sports 1. It is unknown how many games CBS Sports Network will air, but their previous contract was for 24 games per season and allowed for games to be sublicensed to Comcast/Charter Sports South (CSS).

FOX will be able to select the top ten games from the conference. CBS Sports Network will then select the next ten, and FOX will then come back and select another ten games.

ESPN, to settle a lawsuit between the conference and the network, has the rights to the conference championship game.

After all TV contracts have been satisfied, additional games can be picked up for regional or national airings. FOX College Sports has picked up games after the main FOX package has been set.

All of C-USA's contracts expire after the 2015-16 athletic year.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I could not find the basketball game selection process for the conference.

Thanks for this. So If I did the math correct, the contract is for a minimum of 3 games per team. Obviously they can pick up more if they want to as was the case last year.

Found this on how Conf USA football games are chosen for TV. BB says that the network chooses who they will put on TV not the Conf. I think going forward it would be helpful if BB were to partner with the networks and find the best games for TV. Also, BB strikes me as a manager not an innovator.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7ai4j_5m1A