Up till just lately, Bob Thompson described himself as a “social media pariah.” Title the platform—Twitter, Fb, Instagram, TikTok—and he was not on it.
However what higher time to hitch the fray, he thought final month, than whereas recovering from shoulder surgical procedure? The previous tv government, who lives in Scottsdale, Ariz., has spent the previous few weeks laid up in mattress along with his arm in a sling.
And so, as one does, he joined Twitter. He was in for a impolite awakening.
“Boy,” he says, “I discovered fairly shortly that there are many specialists on the market.”
Thompson’s new enterprise aligned completely with a seismic time within the sport because the new-look Massive Ten finalizes the richest TV contract in trade historical past, estimated at round $1.2 billion a 12 months. The timing was no coincidence. Thompson, the president of Fox Sports activities Community for a decade till he stepped away in 2009, is fascinated by these mega-million media rights agreements which can be finally altering the panorama of faculty sports activities.
No TV deal is as fascinating because the one commissioner Kevin Warren & Co. are amassing in Chicago, the place beginning in 2024 three totally different networks are anticipated to amass the rights to broadcast his league’s video games in three totally different home windows: Fox (midday), CBS (afternoon) and NBC (primetime). In a considerably anticipated however nonetheless surprising transfer, the convention is transferring on with out the Worldwide Chief in sports activities.
ESPN and ABC are out, and the faculty sports activities world is awed.
“It’s stunning,” says Thompson. “They’ve been collectively for 40 years.”
“It’s jarring that ESPN isn’t part of a serious partnership in school sports activities,” says one Energy 5 convention administrator. “It has a shock worth.”
Former Fox Sports activities president Bob Thompson, pictured right here in 2005, is among the many sports activities media figures fascinated by the Massive Ten transferring on from ESPN.
Jerry Cleveland/Getty Photos
“Bizarre,” “unbelievable” and “dangerous” are phrases trade stakeholders used to explain the splintering of a four-decade-old partnership between the nation’s high sports activities community and, arguably, its richest school sports activities convention. The ESPN–Massive Ten marriage dates again to the third 12 months of ESPN’s existence, and the connection with ABC is even older. In 1966, the community nationally televised Michigan State’s 10–10 tie with Notre Dame—the primary school soccer recreation to be broadcast in Hawaii and to troops abroad in Vietnam.
Whereas the convention says offers should not but finalized, an announcement is predicted as early as subsequent week.
In a transfer indicative of faculty sports activities’ shift towards tv income and away from time-honored traditions, the break up is predicted to have wide-ranging impacts, notably liberating up TV house and cash for the Pac-12 and Massive 12, each of whose media rights agreements expire over the subsequent two years. “It was a very good day for these two conferences,” says Thompson, who believes ESPN desires no less than a chunk of every league.
Like many others, Thompson believes that the Massive Ten’s inclusion of NBC ensures Notre Dame’s independence, one thing its personal athletic director instructed to reporters Wednesday. The Irish, as anticipated, don’t appear to be in a rush to hitch any league and are actually possible to make use of the brand new market charges to mine NBC for more money.
Thompson says NBC’s new function with the Massive Ten now gives Notre Dame a chance to “marry” its recreation with a weekly Massive Ten recreation in a smorgasbord of high-level school soccer motion on a community that for thus lengthy had largely stayed out of the game. “NBC will attempt to make Saturday evening school soccer like Sunday evening NFL,” Thompson says. “It’s a giant present.”
ESPN’s divorce from the Massive Ten is one more wave in a sea of change that has engulfed school athletics. The community carried 27 soccer video games and 80-some-odd males’s basketball video games a 12 months. It partnered with the 2 leagues to function the ACC–Massive Ten Problem, an annual basketball occasion that began in 1999 and one many presume will now finish.
There’s a nostalgic piece right here. Faculty soccer Saturdays typically kicked off with a Massive Ten recreation on both ABC or ESPN or each. “It was a proper of passage to show the TV on at 11 [central] and see Northwestern and Indiana,” says one Massive 12 administrator. “It was like a ‘O.Okay., the day has began!’”
ESPN’s promotional energy throughout the sport is plain. It stays the one 24-hour, seven-day-a-week, all-sports nationwide community with a number of platforms. The community broadcasts about 90% of bowl video games and has unique rights to the Faculty Soccer Playoff and the CFP Choice Committee’s much-ballyhooed rankings present.
ESPN’s clout is such that one convention commissioner says, “It’s stunning that the Massive Ten wouldn’t take a couple of much less {dollars} and stick with ESPN.”
A Group of 5 athletic director calls the Massive Ten’s resolution a “dangerous transfer” and compares it to Massive East basketball dropping relevance as soon as it left ESPN. “When you can’t ignore Ohio State, you don’t break up with ESPN over a couple of million per 12 months,” the AD says. “It’s not value it.”
Finally, the cash was the sticking level, sources inform Sports activities Illustrated. The community determined to not bid in opposition to CBS for the afternoon slot and declined to fulfill the Massive Ten’s package deal for the prime-time TV window. The prime-time package deal—seven years at $380 million per 12 months—included roughly half of the stock (13 to 14 Massive Ten video games) that the community at present owns. The community didn’t really feel it was beneficial sufficient for such a steep worth, particularly given their new SEC deal.
Beginning in 2024, the league is paying the SEC roughly $300 million a 12 months for that convention’s high video games. Area is considerably restricted. ESPN has a main take care of the ACC as effectively, together with different contracts with Group of 5 conferences. “Half as many video games for twice as a lot cash, that offers everybody pause,” says Thompson.
An ESPN-less Massive Ten won’t see the form of promotion on the game’s flagship community it has prior to now, most agree.
Says one athletic administrator at an SEC faculty: “Gotta determine GameDay isn’t going to point out up at a Massive Ten recreation fairly often. You gotta assume they gained’t be spending an excessive amount of time on the Massive Ten. It’s going to be fascinating to see.”
From a recruiting perspective, it’s a concern for some coaches within the league, one Massive Ten administrator says. But it surely’s not such a fear as it could have been only a few years in the past. “5 years in the past, they’d have freaked out,” the administrator says.
And now? Without having ESPN will likely be “bizarre” and an adjustment, the modern-day younger particular person consumes content material not as a lot on SportsCenter as they do on their telephones, most prominently by social media channels.
An overshadowed a part of the state of affairs is males’s basketball. Round 80 video games as soon as on ESPN must discover a residence, and that’s not really easy, says Thompson. He expects CBS to take some video games, however wonders, “Does FS1 step up? Does NBC get a chunk with Peacock?”
From the very begin, ESPN was at an obstacle within the Massive Ten negotiations, some imagine, due to what specialists say is rare involvement from a broadcasting rival. Fox representatives have been within the Massive Ten’s media rights conferences with different networks, an indication of simply how integral the community is in selections.
“It’s uncommon to have them in on each dialogue,” says one school official. “Fox and ESPN clearly have had a falling out.”
The newest convention realignment strikes are coming on the behest of the 2 networks, many throughout the sport imagine. Every of them is intently related to the 2 school soccer behemoths—the SEC (ESPN) and Massive Ten (Fox)—and now every personal a majority share of their TV rights.
Thompson, nonetheless, doesn’t purchase into the speculation. First off, commissioners and convention directors finally make selections in media rights negotiations, he says. And secondly, Fox and ESPN each want a wholesome FBS—not a two-conference juggernaut that resembles the NFL. Two 16-team conferences don’t at present cowl sufficient markets, although ultimately that may change.
“It would occur down the highway, however I guess it’d be nearer to 2 24-team leagues,” he says. “For each networks, it’s essential that the ACC, Pac-12 and Massive 12 stay robust.”
The Pac-12 is within the midst of a second unique negotiating window with ESPN and Fox, extending its authentic window till the completion of the Massive Ten’s deal. The league is trying to safe its 10 members with a powerful media rights contract. Whereas ESPN’s ouster from the Massive Ten is a constructive for the league, the dearth of competitors is a unfavourable.
CBS and NBC appear unlikely companions now that they’re with the Massive Ten. And Fox’s state of affairs is difficult. The community is a accomplice with the league that simply poached the Pac-12’s two largest manufacturers in USC and UCLA.
So who will bid in opposition to ESPN for a West Coast league whose video games usually kickoff after 9 p.m. ET?
One factor ESPN gained’t do is overpay, says one school soccer official who has been concerned in negotiations with the community. ESPN will use its clout and worth—“We now have all of the sports activities discuss reveals!”—as a instrument to maintain the determine low, he says.
“Understand this,” says a retired school administrator with an extended historical past of negotiating in opposition to the community. “ESPN is hard, and if there’s no competitors, you don’t wish to be in that atmosphere.”
For the Massive Ten, that atmosphere labored out effectively. The league devised what many say is an excellent plan to place out to bid three separate TV home windows with intent to barter every individually and the purpose of partnering with three totally different networks for a interval of six to seven years—half the size of the SEC’s ESPN deal. It finally led to a major pay day for Massive Ten colleges, estimated to be within the neighborhood of $80 million to $90 million a 12 months in distribution.
One other bonus for the Massive Ten is cross-promotional commercial by no means seen earlier than in school sports activities. Think about Fox, CBS and NBC all selling their very own and one another’s Massive Ten matchups throughout their Sunday NFL broadcasts?
“Having the three flagship networks is uncommon,” says Thompson. “From the Massive Ten’s standpoint, to have three home windows with three networks on each Saturday on this period of cord-cutting is an amazing accomplishment.”
All of it’s good for faculty sports activities, says Oliver Luck, the previous school athletic director and NCAA government.
“Take the 50,000 foot view,” he says. “If you happen to care about school soccer, you need as most of the large broadcasters as potential spending as a lot cash as they’ll.”
A type of broadcast networks, CBS, has left many puzzled. The community has among the best TV packages in American sports activities historical past, proudly owning the SEC’s high recreation for about $55 million a 12 months in a deal that ends subsequent season. In 2020, the community pulled out of a bidding struggle with ESPN in negotiations to increase the package deal. And now, two years later, CBS is paying roughly $50 million extra for the Massive Ten’s secondary recreation than ESPN is for the SEC’s high recreation?
These throughout the school sports activities and TV trade say CBS misinterpret the market throughout SEC negotiations, not anticipating media rights to soar in the identical method school soccer teaching salaries have elevated so shortly.
“The SEC is one of the best product exterior of the NFL,” says one convention administrator. “You’ve paid extra for a second- and probably third-tier Massive Ten product and you’re going in opposition to the stuff you gave away?”
By the years, many imagine CBS’s relationship with the SEC deteriorated. Even when the league expanded so as to add Texas A&M and Missouri, the community refused to extend its fee to the convention regardless of it being ghastly low. “I don’t assume there’s any doubt that Mike [Slive] and Greg [Sankey] weren’t proud of CBS. They needed extra,” says a former convention administrator who is aware of the state of affairs effectively.
With the brand new Massive Ten deal beginning in 2023, CBS could have one 12 months by which it owns the rights of the Massive Ten’s second-tier recreation in addition to the highest SEC recreation—an fascinating crossover quandary. The SEC’s contract with CBS requires its recreation to be solely aired by the community at 3:30 p.m. ET.
The Massive Ten’s deal will likely be organized in a method to enable CBS to meet its SEC duties within the first 12 months of the contract, a supply tells SI, although particulars weren’t supplied.
In the meantime, again in Scottsdale, when he’s not tweeting by a restoration from shoulder surgical procedure, Thompson is {golfing}. On the aspect, he acts as a tv community marketing consultant, too, so he should keep engaged in trade information, a lot of which could be discovered on Twitter.
It’s a part of why he ended his social media ban, joined the social media platform and now finds himself with greater than 1,000 followers. He’s posted almost 200 tweets, lots of them relating to the continuing media rights saga transpiring throughout the faculty panorama. In a single tweet, hours earlier than information broke that ESPN had pulled out of Massive Ten negotiations, Thompson predicted that the brand new Massive Ten soccer Saturday would come with three video games on Fox/FS1, one recreation on CBS and one to 2 video games on ESPN.
Says a chuckling Thompson a couple of days later: “A lot for that prediction!”
On this week, even the actual specialists on Twitter have been shocked.
Extra Faculty Soccer Protection:
• The Different Aspect of NIL Collectives, Faculty Sports activities’ Latest Recreation-Changer
• 40 Observations on the Faculty Soccer Schedule
• The Route of Faculty Athletics Hangs within the Steadiness
• Most Intriguing Coaches of the 2022 Season