(05-18-2020 06:33 AM)GTFletch Wrote:  We aren’t going to see $1 billion for the AAC anymore. That’s the crux of the matter, per the sports-based business website The Morning Consult. Nick Dawson, VP of programming for ESPN, said that the deal was negotiated with UConn in mind, specifically its blue-chip basketball programs. There is a composition clause in the AAC-ESPN deal and it appears the Bristol-based network will exercise it. That means the 11-team conference will see less money. ESPN has big plans, it appears, for the women’s basketball program, and now all home rights for the basketball teams are owned by Fox Sports.

HOW MUCH IS UCONN REALLY WORTH? We guess the market is going to decide this. The deal is for 12 years and $1 billion with UConn in the conference. Now, with 11 teams — there is no worthy member to replace UConn — we’ll see how low it goes. We are guessing the difference is how much ESPN values UConn’s brand.


Link
https://morningconsult.com/2019/12/12/es...-big-east/

That article was from December, at the College Intercollegiate Athletics Forum presented by Sports Business Journal. Plenty of talk on here about ALL the discussions around that event.

And no news since then...

Furthermore any discussions about 11 vs 12 are almost certainly eclipsed by considerations / renegotiations / accounting related to the shutdown of March Madness and Spring Sports and the unknowns of this coming fall sports season. (And it will be hard for another year plus to discern what adjustments are UConn specific, and what are pandemic-related).

(I hate to go down this rabbit hole - but do you really think the Women's Basketball value will be impactful in the context of a billion dollar deal?)

(05-18-2020 07:50 AM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  

(05-18-2020 06:33 AM)GTFletch Wrote:  We aren’t going to see $1 billion for the AAC anymore. That’s the crux of the matter, per the sports-based business website The Morning Consult. Nick Dawson, VP of programming for ESPN, said that the deal was negotiated with UConn in mind, specifically its blue-chip basketball programs. There is a composition clause in the AAC-ESPN deal and it appears the Bristol-based network will exercise it. That means the 11-team conference will see less money. ESPN has big plans, it appears, for the women’s basketball program, and now all home rights for the basketball teams are owned by Fox Sports.

HOW MUCH IS UCONN REALLY WORTH? We guess the market is going to decide this. The deal is for 12 years and $1 billion with UConn in the conference. Now, with 11 teams — there is no worthy member to replace UConn — we’ll see how low it goes. We are guessing the difference is how much ESPN values UConn’s brand.


Link
https://morningconsult.com/2019/12/12/es...-big-east/

That article was from December, at the College Intercollegiate Athletics Forum presented by Sports Business Journal. Plenty of talk on here about ALL the discussions around that event.

And no news since then...

Furthermore any discussions about 11 vs 12 are almost certainly eclipsed by considerations / renegotiations / accounting related to the shutdown of March Madness and Spring Sports and the unknowns of this coming fall sports season. (And it will be hard for another year plus to discern what adjustments are UConn specific, and what are pandemic-related).

(I hate to go down this rabbit hole - but do you really think the Women's Basketball value will be impactful in the context of a billion dollar deal?)

Don’t we actually now know the “market value” of UConn at this point? The Big East deal is 4 million a team. The Big East didn’t ask FOX for anything more than a pro-rata increase to add UConn. UConn willingly accepted the 4 million pay out. That payout includes the value of ALL UConn Olympic sports including women’s basketball. The missing piece was the football value and now we now have a good idea of that. Thus, there is really no market based reason to expect any contract adjustment to exceed UConn’s per rata share of the deal (in fact, the adjustment should be only about 4.5 million or so if market value is used).

(05-18-2020 09:07 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(05-18-2020 07:50 AM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  

(05-18-2020 06:33 AM)GTFletch Wrote:  We aren’t going to see $1 billion for the AAC anymore. That’s the crux of the matter, per the sports-based business website The Morning Consult. Nick Dawson, VP of programming for ESPN, said that the deal was negotiated with UConn in mind, specifically its blue-chip basketball programs. There is a composition clause in the AAC-ESPN deal and it appears the Bristol-based network will exercise it. That means the 11-team conference will see less money. ESPN has big plans, it appears, for the women’s basketball program, and now all home rights for the basketball teams are owned by Fox Sports.

HOW MUCH IS UCONN REALLY WORTH? We guess the market is going to decide this. The deal is for 12 years and $1 billion with UConn in the conference. Now, with 11 teams — there is no worthy member to replace UConn — we’ll see how low it goes. We are guessing the difference is how much ESPN values UConn’s brand.


Link
https://morningconsult.com/2019/12/12/es...-big-east/

That article was from December, at the College Intercollegiate Athletics Forum presented by Sports Business Journal. Plenty of talk on here about ALL the discussions around that event.

And no news since then...

Furthermore any discussions about 11 vs 12 are almost certainly eclipsed by considerations / renegotiations / accounting related to the shutdown of March Madness and Spring Sports and the unknowns of this coming fall sports season. (And it will be hard for another year plus to discern what adjustments are UConn specific, and what are pandemic-related).

(I hate to go down this rabbit hole - but do you really think the Women's Basketball value will be impactful in the context of a billion dollar deal?)

Don’t we actually now know the “market value” of UConn at this point? The Big East deal is 4 million a team. The Big East didn’t ask FOX for anything more than an a pro-rata increase to add UConn. UConn willingly accepted the 4 million pay out. That payout includes the value of ALL UConn Olympic sports including women’s basketball. The missing piece was the football value and now we now have a good idea of that. Thus, there is really no market based reason to expect any contract adjustment to exceed UConn’s per rata share of the deal (in fact, the adjustment should be only about 4.5 million or so if market value is used).

Great point.
I've previously SWAGged it out from the other direction.
If the $83.3M average annual value is 75% football and 25% basketball, then the standard aav of an AAC football football program is $5.21M per year, and basketball is $1.74M. If UConn is a lower-than-average value member in football, but a higher-than-average value member in basketball...

I generally get numbers suggesting $5M decrement in the overall deal.

Why does a self-professed Ga Tech fan with a Wyoming football avatar give a flip flop about what ESPN does with any financial adjustments to a new contract with the AAC, other than to just stir up crap?

Fletch is looking at it all wrong. It won't be a billion dollar deal now that UCONN is gone, it will rise to 1.1 Billion since they no longer have to waste TV time on that crap.

I'm not a lawyer or a mathematician, but my understanding is that the $1B deal was for 12 teams and 12 years. Now with 11 teams, each team will give up 1/12th of the money or $833K for the 12 years or $69.4K/year. But each schools share will remain the same as before. So the total contract will be reduced and each school will still get 1/11th of the remaining $99,167K, leaving each school's share the same as before, or $6,944.4K. It is the American's policy to treat each school the same. I could be wrong but that is my understanding.

(05-18-2020 02:00 PM)SMUstang Wrote:  I'm not a lawyer or a mathematician, but my understanding is that the $1B deal was for 12 teams and 12 years. Now with 11 teams, each team will give up 1/12th of the money or $833K for the 12 years or $69.4K/year. But each schools share will remain the same as before. So the total contract will be reduced and each school will still get 1/11th of the remaining $99,167K, leaving each school's share the same as before, or $6,944.4K. It is the American's policy to treat each school the same. I could be wrong but that is my understanding.

We distribute equally, but it is incumbent on ESPN to prove that the loss of UConn is in fact worth 1/12th.

The $1B deal was for a set amount of content: 40 football games on ABC/ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU with 20 of those on ABC/ESPN/ESPN2, and the rest of the football games on ESPN+; basketball games in similar rundown between linear and streaming (but a little more ESPN+ heavy); "third tier" for the "AAC Network" on ESPN+ with right to call up to linear.

Each of those pieces of content have varying values, right? The AAC football CCG is gonna get like three million viewers if they put it on ABC. Other AAC games on ABC get a couple million viewers (this is proven track record). Those 20 are worth more than the other 20 on ESPNU, which are worth more to ESPN than the ESPN+ worthy games, right?

AND all have agreed that the value of the $1B deal lay largely in FOOTBALL - 75% to 25%.

So from the $83.3M average annual value $62.5M is from football, meaning that if the value delivered to ESPN was distributed evenly - everyone gave the same percentage of ABC games and ESPN games and ESPN2 games and ESPNU games and ESPN+ games - any loss would represent a loss of $5.2M.
But if losing UConn means ESPN loses zero ABC games and zero ESPN games and a couple Thursday/Friday ESPN2 games like UConn had last year...but wait, we can still fill Thurs/Fri, just not from the Rent... and a couple Saturday ESPNU games (like last year) and some ESPN+ filler, then they haven't really lost $5.2M worth of content value have they?

Conversely, for basketball, UConn and the brand and the old titles (viewers are the important bit here, not middle-of-the-pack, non-tournament finishes in the AAC) are disporoportionately MORE valuable to ESPN.

If you do content by network and timeslot, or ratings/viewers, or maybe you're projecting subscriptions for the ESPN+....you can come up with different numbers than the facile 1/12th.

What did Aresco do before he came to the AAC?

(05-18-2020 02:00 PM)SMUstang Wrote:  I'm not a lawyer or a mathematician, but my understanding is that the $1B deal was for 12 teams and 12 years. Now with 11 teams, each team will give up 1/12th of the money or $833K for the 12 years or $69.4K/year. But each schools share will remain the same as before. So the total contract will be reduced and each school will still get 1/11th of the remaining $99,167K, leaving each school's share the same as before, or $6,944.4K. It is the American's policy to treat each school the same. I could be wrong but that is my understanding.

Even if that happens each member would still benefit from UCONN's departure due to $17B exit fee.

(05-18-2020 02:54 PM)Indiana Bones Wrote:  

(05-18-2020 02:00 PM)SMUstang Wrote:  I'm not a lawyer or a mathematician, but my understanding is that the $1B deal was for 12 teams and 12 years. Now with 11 teams, each team will give up 1/12th of the money or $833K for the 12 years or $69.4K/year. But each schools share will remain the same as before. So the total contract will be reduced and each school will still get 1/11th of the remaining $99,167K, leaving each school's share the same as before, or $6,944.4K. It is the American's policy to treat each school the same. I could be wrong but that is my understanding.

Even if that happens each member would still benefit from UCONN's departure due to $17B exit fee.

And dividing CFP money 11 ways rather than 12

(05-18-2020 03:04 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  

(05-18-2020 02:54 PM)Indiana Bones Wrote:  

(05-18-2020 02:00 PM)SMUstang Wrote:  I'm not a lawyer or a mathematician, but my understanding is that the $1B deal was for 12 teams and 12 years. Now with 11 teams, each team will give up 1/12th of the money or $833K for the 12 years or $69.4K/year. But each schools share will remain the same as before. So the total contract will be reduced and each school will still get 1/11th of the remaining $99,167K, leaving each school's share the same as before, or $6,944.4K. It is the American's policy to treat each school the same. I could be wrong but that is my understanding.

Even if that happens each member would still benefit from UCONN's departure due to $17B exit fee.

And dividing CFP money 11 ways rather than 12

Good point.

We've been over all this before. Rather than dig up the old thread, here's some good info from the OS:

Quote:UConn’s exit triggered a clause in the American’s media-rights agreement allowing ESPN to amend the agreement if a school leaves the league, but AAC commissioner Mike Aresco cautions this is far from a renegotiation.

"Any time a school leaves, you potentially negotiate an adjustment because obviously you lost something,” Aresco told the Orlando Sentinel Thursday. “We lost one of our teams and right now, we don’t have any intentions of replacing them, at least not for now.

Quote:“No school will end up getting less money than they were going to get originally,” Aresco said. “That typically won’t happen; it’s just a question of what adjustments you make and if you make financial adjustments, it still doesn’t mean anybody is going to get less.”

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/c...story.html

As for the morning consult article, the writer calls UCONN a blue chip asset. The ESPN rep said:

Quote:“Obviously for us, we did the deal with UConn as part of the conference. That was our preference — that UConn would be there,” Dawson said Thursday at the Learfield IMG College Intercollegiate Athletics Forum presented by Sports Business Journal. “The school made their decision, which we respect and, much like any time this happens in terms of membership change, there’s a process that’s outlined in the agreement that we’re working through.”

Both Aresco and Dr. Rudd said the same as the bolded part in separate interviews on Memphis radio after the conference. Both specifically said the contract isn't up for renegotiation just that the composition clause needs to be worked through. Both said the impact to individual schools would be negligible. Aresco even said the conference could eat any difference to keep payouts full. Not a peep about it since then. Several member schools have very active media personnel covering not only their schools' specific sports, but the AAC as a whole. I'd be surprised if any major change could be made without it getting out. Heck, the AAC is high profile enough that national writers would be all over a big change, yet <<crickets>>.

ETA: Think some confusion and misinformation may be originating from the Morning Consult article. For one, the author’s description of UCONN’s relevance to the AAC is being be attributed to the ESPN VP quoted in the article. Also, appears as if the number of women’s bball games aired may be a point of confusion...with good reason as the original article was fuzzy and had to be amended. As I read it, the increased number of games was for 2019/2020...the final year of the old contract in which UCONN owned women’s bball rights. Beginning in July 2020, ESPN owns all rights, thus has no need for additional negotiation. I don’t think the article is intentionally misleading, merely poorly written.

Correct me if I am wrong.
It seems to me I remember that under the new ESPN contract they were not going to allow UCONN women to appear on SNY network which UConn really wanted for it women’s program. That decision sealed the deal for UConn to leave. If ESPN would have allowed SNY to broadcast UConn women maybe they don’t leave.

(05-18-2020 09:30 PM)kyucat Wrote:  Correct me if I am wrong.
It seems to me I remember that under the new ESPN contract they were not going to allow UCONN women to appear on SNY network which UConn really wanted for it women’s program. That decision sealed the deal for UConn to leave. If ESPN would have allowed SNY to broadcast UConn women maybe they don’t leave.

I'll correct you, you are wrong.

1) ESPN was willing to negotiate it and said so, they have done so with other properties in a similar situation.

2) Fox now owns those rights (or will when they play again) those rights are as exclusive as they were with ESPN and offer considerably less national broadcast minimums then were present in the AAC contract. Fox has shown from past properties they are not interested in sharing. Depaul women's got a handful of games on NBC Chicago and apparently was done at a fairly steep price, which Fox pocketed.

This was all about a delusional fanbase who thinks it was left behind and who firmly believes that the AAC held their basketball down. These same people think they are getting Syracuse, Pitt, and BC in the Big East, and going dtraight back to the glory days.

Take it for.what you will.

(05-18-2020 10:37 PM)Foreverandever Wrote:  

(05-18-2020 09:30 PM)kyucat Wrote:  Correct me if I am wrong.
It seems to me I remember that under the new ESPN contract they were not going to allow UCONN women to appear on SNY network which UConn really wanted for it women’s program. That decision sealed the deal for UConn to leave. If ESPN would have allowed SNY to broadcast UConn women maybe they don’t leave.

I'll correct you, you are wrong.

1) ESPN was willing to negotiate it and said so, they have done so with other properties in a similar situation.

2) Fox now owns those rights (or will when they play again) those rights are as exclusive as they were with ESPN and offer considerably less national broadcast minimums then were present in the AAC contract. Fox has shown from past properties they are not interested in sharing. Depaul women's got a handful of games on NBC Chicago and apparently was done at a fairly steep price, which Fox pocketed.

This was all about a delusional fanbase who thinks it was left behind and who firmly believes that the AAC held their basketball down. These same people think they are getting Syracuse, Pitt, and BC in the Big East, and going dtraight back to the glory days.

Take it for.what you will.

Thanks for clearing that up.

(05-18-2020 10:49 PM)kyucat Wrote:  

(05-18-2020 10:37 PM)Foreverandever Wrote:  

(05-18-2020 09:30 PM)kyucat Wrote:  Correct me if I am wrong.
It seems to me I remember that under the new ESPN contract they were not going to allow UCONN women to appear on SNY network which UConn really wanted for it women’s program. That decision sealed the deal for UConn to leave. If ESPN would have allowed SNY to broadcast UConn women maybe they don’t leave.

I'll correct you, you are wrong.

1) ESPN was willing to negotiate it and said so, they have done so with other properties in a similar situation.

2) Fox now owns those rights (or will when they play again) those rights are as exclusive as they were with ESPN and offer considerably less national broadcast minimums then were present in the AAC contract. Fox has shown from past properties they are not interested in sharing. Depaul women's got a handful of games on NBC Chicago and apparently was done at a fairly steep price, which Fox pocketed.

This was all about a delusional fanbase who thinks it was left behind and who firmly believes that the AAC held their basketball down. These same people think they are getting Syracuse, Pitt, and BC in the Big East, and going dtraight back to the glory days.

Take it for.what you will.

Thanks for clearing that up.

The SNY deal with Fox is done. ESPN dragged their feet. The administration felt they wanted to leverage UConn women’s hoops for ESPN+ subscriptions. Also, the women’s fan base is older and less likely to adapt to streaming. The school felt really strongly about being on linear TV and that is guaranteed to be the case now. Obviously, that’s still just one factor. Basketball ticket sales are way up for men’s hoops and UConn versus any Big East team can be a big game.

(05-19-2020 12:02 AM)HartfordHusky Wrote:  

(05-18-2020 10:49 PM)kyucat Wrote:  

(05-18-2020 10:37 PM)Foreverandever Wrote:  

(05-18-2020 09:30 PM)kyucat Wrote:  Correct me if I am wrong.
It seems to me I remember that under the new ESPN contract they were not going to allow UCONN women to appear on SNY network which UConn really wanted for it women’s program. That decision sealed the deal for UConn to leave. If ESPN would have allowed SNY to broadcast UConn women maybe they don’t leave.

I'll correct you, you are wrong.

1) ESPN was willing to negotiate it and said so, they have done so with other properties in a similar situation.

2) Fox now owns those rights (or will when they play again) those rights are as exclusive as they were with ESPN and offer considerably less national broadcast minimums then were present in the AAC contract. Fox has shown from past properties they are not interested in sharing. Depaul women's got a handful of games on NBC Chicago and apparently was done at a fairly steep price, which Fox pocketed.

This was all about a delusional fanbase who thinks it was left behind and who firmly believes that the AAC held their basketball down. These same people think they are getting Syracuse, Pitt, and BC in the Big East, and going dtraight back to the glory days.

Take it for.what you will.

Thanks for clearing that up.

The SNY deal with Fox is done. ESPN dragged their feet. The administration felt they wanted to leverage UConn women’s hoops for ESPN+ subscriptions. Also, the women’s fan base is older and less likely to adapt to streaming. The school felt really strongly about being on linear TV and that is guaranteed to be the case now. Obviously, that’s still just one factor. Basketball ticket sales are way up for men’s hoops and UConn versus any Big East team can be a big game.

ESPN dragged their feet? When did we sign the AAC deal with ESPN? March of 2019.
When did UConn announce they were leaving? June/July of 2019.
When did Fox and SNY announce the deal? End of February 2020.

Time ESPN "dragged" its feet to negotiate with SNY before UConn bolted 3 months
Total time for Fox and SNY to nitro charge the deal 8 months.

Seems accurate and believable.

My guess is UConn called SNY and told them not to bother trying with ESPN.

UConn will be FCS in two years tops, enjoy those Butler, Creighton, Xavier rivalries. Good luck.

(05-18-2020 02:54 PM)Indiana Bones Wrote:  

(05-18-2020 02:00 PM)SMUstang Wrote:  I'm not a lawyer or a mathematician, but my understanding is that the $1B deal was for 12 teams and 12 years. Now with 11 teams, each team will give up 1/12th of the money or $833K for the 12 years or $69.4K/year. But each schools share will remain the same as before. So the total contract will be reduced and each school will still get 1/11th of the remaining $99,167K, leaving each school's share the same as before, or $6,944.4K. It is the American's policy to treat each school the same. I could be wrong but that is my understanding.

Even if that happens each member would still benefit from UCONN's departure due to $17B exit fee.

17 BILLION! Dang! Aresco is better than we thought if he pulled that one off.

(05-19-2020 12:33 AM)UConnHusky Wrote:  

(05-18-2020 02:54 PM)Indiana Bones Wrote:  

(05-18-2020 02:00 PM)SMUstang Wrote:  I'm not a lawyer or a mathematician, but my understanding is that the $1B deal was for 12 teams and 12 years. Now with 11 teams, each team will give up 1/12th of the money or $833K for the 12 years or $69.4K/year. But each schools share will remain the same as before. So the total contract will be reduced and each school will still get 1/11th of the remaining $99,167K, leaving each school's share the same as before, or $6,944.4K. It is the American's policy to treat each school the same. I could be wrong but that is my understanding.

Even if that happens each member would still benefit from UCONN's departure due to $17B exit fee.

17 BILLION! Dang! Aresco is better than we thought if he pulled that one off.

And we'd probably still be paying him too much

(05-19-2020 12:02 AM)HartfordHusky Wrote:  

(05-18-2020 10:49 PM)kyucat Wrote:  

(05-18-2020 10:37 PM)Foreverandever Wrote:  

(05-18-2020 09:30 PM)kyucat Wrote:  Correct me if I am wrong.
It seems to me I remember that under the new ESPN contract they were not going to allow UCONN women to appear on SNY network which UConn really wanted for it women’s program. That decision sealed the deal for UConn to leave. If ESPN would have allowed SNY to broadcast UConn women maybe they don’t leave.

I'll correct you, you are wrong.

1) ESPN was willing to negotiate it and said so, they have done so with other properties in a similar situation.

2) Fox now owns those rights (or will when they play again) those rights are as exclusive as they were with ESPN and offer considerably less national broadcast minimums then were present in the AAC contract. Fox has shown from past properties they are not interested in sharing. Depaul women's got a handful of games on NBC Chicago and apparently was done at a fairly steep price, which Fox pocketed.

This was all about a delusional fanbase who thinks it was left behind and who firmly believes that the AAC held their basketball down. These same people think they are getting Syracuse, Pitt, and BC in the Big East, and going dtraight back to the glory days.

Take it for.what you will.

Thanks for clearing that up.

The SNY deal with Fox is done. ESPN dragged their feet. The administration felt they wanted to leverage UConn women’s hoops for ESPN+ subscriptions. Also, the women’s fan base is older and less likely to adapt to streaming. The school felt really strongly about being on linear TV and that is guaranteed to be the case now. Obviously, that’s still just one factor. Basketball ticket sales are way up for men’s hoops and UConn versus any Big East team can be a big game.

Are they way up? Or way quick?

Saw the tweet that sales in two days had equalled sales in six weeks. Thats good and indicates an excited fanbase. But it isn't yet more.

We now know UConn Fb is worth aprox 500k per year, so double that in AAC and you get 1 mil. add in 2 mil for bb and ESPN should seek a 3 mil per year cut in TV. That leaves 5mil per year for the other 11 to split plus the CFP money that UConn would have received.