Big 12, Fox working on long-term TV deal

[ArrowheadHawk]

Big 12, Fox working on long-term TV deal

By J-W Staff Reports

The Big 12 Conference is nearing a cable agreement with Fox that will more than triple the conference’s revenue over its current contract, Sports Business Journal reported Monday.

The long-term deal would pay the 10-team league more than $60 million a year, well up from the $20 million it now receives from its cable contract, industry sources told the Business Journal.

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Fox, meanwhile, has been in discussions with eight of the league’s schools about establishing a conference-specific channel for a handful of football games, up to 60 basketball games and Olympic sports. The channel would not include programming from the University of Texas, which has partnered with ESPN on a new Longhorns channel, or the University of Oklahoma, which is planning its own channel, as well.

KU is among the eight Big 12 schools talking to Fox about a college sports channel to carry its events.

The two arrangements — Fox’s cable deal with the league and Fox’s potential channel with the eight teams — are separate conversations, sources told the Sports Business Journal. Fox’s cable deal with the Big 12 must be completed first so that the network knows how much content is available for a conference channel. The conference office is not involved in the talks about a channel for the eight schools.

The Big 12’s current cable contract with Fox runs through the 2011-12 academic year and will pay the league $20 million in the final season.

http://www2.kusports.com/news/2011/mar/15/big-12-fox-working-deal/

[ArrowheadHawk]

The Sports Business Journal article. (http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2011/03/Mar-14/Media/Big-12.aspx)

Fox and Big 12 near deal worth more than $60 million a year

By Michael Smith & John Ourand
Staff Writers
Published March 14, 2011

On the verge of collapse just months ago, the Big 12 is nearing a cable agreement with Fox that will more than triple the conference’s revenue over its current contract.

The Big 12 and Fox are close to finalizing a long-term deal that will pay the 10-team league more than $60 million a year, well up from the $20 million it now receives from its cable contract, industry sources say.

Fox, meanwhile, has been in discussions with eight of the league’s schools about establishing a conference-specific channel for a handful of football games, up to 60 basketball games and Olympic sports. The channel would not include programming from the University of Texas, which has partnered with ESPN on a new Longhorns channel, or the University of Oklahoma, which is planning its own channel, as well.


http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2011/03/Mar-14/Media/~/media/29BA8D716FF2440A8B4FD1502E8AB7F9.ashx
Kansas is among the eight Big 12 schools talking to Fox about a college sports channel to carry their events.
The other eight schools, however, have been engaged with Fox about a college sports channel that would carry their events. Fox’s talks, led by the co-president of Fox Sports, Randy Freer, primarily have gone through Learfield Sports, which is the multimedia rights holder for Kansas State, Iowa State, Missouri, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M and Texas Tech. IMG College owns the rights at Baylor and Kansas.

Talks have centered on having Fox flip one of its three Fox College Sports national channels, which are carried on cable sports tiers. Whether the channel could be called the Big 12 Network remains to be seen because only eight of the 10 schools in the conference would be participating. The conference office would have to rule on whether the name could be used in such a venture.

The athletic directors at the schools that would make up such a channel were updated about the negotiations by Learfield executives during last weekend’s Big 12 basketball tournament in Kansas City.

The two arrangements — Fox’s cable deal with the league and Fox’s potential channel with the eight teams — are separate conversations, sources say. Fox’s cable deal with the Big 12 must be completed first so that the network knows how much content is available for a conference channel. The conference office is not involved in the talks about a channel for the eight schools.

“The conference continues to work diligently on our future television rights agreement,” said Big 12 spokesman Bob Burda, but he offered no details on the progress of the talks. Fox executives had no comment on the deals because they have not been signed.

The two developments signify a stark turnaround from last summer, when the Big 12’s future was in doubt as Texas, Oklahoma and others talked about joining an expanded Pac-10.

At the time, one of the Big 12’s marquee schools, Nebraska, had fled for the Big Ten, and another, Colorado, had defected to the Pac-10. Rumors swirled that the six schools in the Big 12’s south division were headed out west, which would have meant the end of the 15-year-old conference, which was created out of the old Southwest and Big 8 conferences.

Commissioner Dan Beebe salvaged the league by promising growth in TV revenue and allowing schools to retain a substantial portion of their media rights, which cleared the way for Texas to start its own network. Once the Longhorns committed to staying, everyone else did, too.

Now the additional revenue from the new Fox cable agreement will be shared by 10 schools, not 12, which would expand each school’s piece of the pie.

The Big 12’s current cable contract with Fox runs through the 2011-12 academic year and will pay the league $20 million in the final season. Terms of the new deal will drive revenue above $60 million and potentially close to $70 million annually for the league.

The conference also has a network broadcast contract with ABC/ESPN worth $480 million over eight years that runs through 2015-16. It was first thought that the Big 12 would extend its cable agreement to 2016 to make it concurrent with the ABC/ESPN contract, but now sources say that the Fox extension will go beyond 2016 and could go out as long as 10 years, to 2022.

The network and cable deals combined will bring an average of close to $130 million a year into the conference to share with the 10 teams, putting the Big 12 only slightly behind the ACC, which recently struck a deal for $155 million a year with ESPN.

If Fox follows through on its talks to create a conference channel for those eight schools, it would aggregate what’s known as the third-tier rights from those schools. The third-tier rights are the games that are not picked up as part of the network or cable contracts, so they drop to the third tier.

Most schools turn over their third-tier rights to their rights holder, like Learfield and IMG College, which televises those games locally or regionally via TV or online and uses them to generate ad revenue.

Under terms of the new cable agreement with Fox, each school will be permitted to retain the rights to at least one home football game and a handful of men’s basketball games. That means a new conference channel would have the rights to a minimum of eight football games total. In men’s basketball, anywhere from six to 13 games per school typically fall into the third tier of rights.

Kansas is considered to have the most valuable assortment of third-tier rights because of its historically strong basketball program and national following.

But while a new channel would significantly boost exposure and potentially aid recruiting for the eight schools, it is not expected to provide a financial windfall. Those schools already are being paid for their third-tier rights in their multimedia contracts with Learfield and IMG College.

By flipping an existing Fox College Sports channel, Fox would save on development and facility startup costs, and would start with a national distribution footprint of between 10 million and 20 million homes. However, the network would either have to pay Learfield and IMG College to obtain programming rights or negotiate a partnership position for them in the channel. The other option would be to create a syndicated network of over-the-air channels within the Big 12 footprint. Bill Byrne, the Texas A&M athletic director, is on the record as supporting the creation of a channel. “I prefer an offering in the form of a Big 12 Network for our fans,” Byrne wrote in his January blog on the school’s athletic website.

A new channel could send repercussions through the league on several fronts, including scheduling. Most of the third-tier football games are against nonconference foes in September. To provide more balanced programming, those games would need to be scattered throughout the season, which means the conference schedule would have to accommodate nonconference games in October and possibly November.

The schools also would have to work with the conference on how conference games are distributed. If Texas plays Texas A&M in volleyball, does the home team get the rights to the game? Can it be simulcast on both the conference channel and the Longhorns’ channel?

And what about the name of a conference channel? Can it be called the Big 12 channel if all 10 of the league’s schools are not involved?

Those are details that need to be ironed out, but it’s clear now that talks are getting more serious and that the idea of a conference channel for eight schools has significant support.

[Bambi]

The Sports Business Journal article. (http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2011/03/Mar-14/Media/Big-12.aspx)

Fox and Big 12 near deal worth more than $60 million a year

By Michael Smith & John Ourand
Staff Writers
Published March 14, 2011

On the verge of collapse just months ago, the Big 12 is nearing a cable agreement with Fox that will more than triple the conference’s revenue over its current contract.



Why do people in the media keep saying this?? Like many of us said months there was never any chance of the big12 collapsing. The "regionality" is just way too important, always has been, always will be.

Texas/Oklahoma football alongside Kansas basketball hold a strong enough economic power nationwide that there was never any need for Texas to be flying to Oregon or Oklahoma flying to Florida to play games.

It was never going to happen, now this is the start of great news for the big12 schools and the huge $$'s they're about to receive from FOX. Not only that but now they only have to split with 9 other schools.

This isn't even the big payday, there's more to come.

Well played Beebe...

[Saulbadguy]

Why do people in the media keep saying this?? Like many of us said months there was never any chance of the big12 collapsing. The "regionality" is just way too important, always has been, always will be.

Texas/Oklahoma football alongside Kansas basketball hold a strong enough economic power nationwide that there was never any need for Texas to be flying to Oregon or Oklahoma flying to Florida to play games.

It was never going to happen, now this is the start of great news for the big12 schools and the huge $$'s they're about to receive from FOX. Not only that but now they only have to split with 9 other schools.

This isn't even the big payday, there's more to come.

Well played Beebe...

Man, I love this guy.

[Bambi]

Man, I love this guy.

eh, just repeating the article

[Lzen]

Man, I love this guy.

It was in the article.

Kansas is considered to have the most valuable assortment of third-tier rights because of its historically strong basketball program and national following.

If you have actual stats to say otherwise, I would love to see it. I have long wondered how these things compare but never had much luck in finding accurate stats.

[Saulbadguy]

It was in the article.

Where in the article did it imply that basketball was a factor in keeping the Big XII alive?

[Bambi]

It was in the article.



If you have actual stats to say otherwise, I would love to see it. I have long wondered how these things compare but never had much luck in finding accurate stats.

Anyone doubting the economic power of college basketball obviously wasn't around the P&L last week.

[Saulbadguy]

Anyone doubting the economic power of college basketball obviously wasn't around the P&L last week.

:LOL:

[Bambi]

:LOL:

Oh wait, was K State there?

I must have missed them ROFL

[Saulbadguy]

Oh wait, was K State there?

I must have missed them ROFL

We were dancing to Jay Sean at McFaddens.

[Dante84]

Anyone doubting the economic power of college basketball obviously wasn't around the P&L last week.

You can't compare BBall dollars to Football dollars. Its not even close.

[kepp]

You can't compare BBall dollars to Football dollars. Its not even close.

Oh no...let's not open this can of worms again.

[Saulbadguy]

Oh no...let's not open this can of worms again.

THE PAC-10 PLANE!!11

[Bambi]

You can't compare BBall dollars to Football dollars. Its not even close.

Hah, we've been over this before.

The Big 12 tourney was projected to earn KC about $14 million this last week.

The nice weather increased that I'm sure.

The NCAA tourney has a TV deal worth $11 billion, with a b, over the next 14 years.

The NCAA tourney is the most bet on event in American sport.

But why throw numbers around, my proof is that "football only" super conferences didn't form. They never will.

No need to argue about it any more.

[Bambi]

THE PAC-10 PLANE!!11

What's the PAc 10 have to do with anything.

They're now economically weaker due to 2 schools joining them.

Not only that but academically they've watered themselves down by adding two "not so great" schools to their conference.

Same as the Big10 has done.

There's a reason why Stanford, Cal etc were fighting expanding teams.

All the luck to them.

[WilliamTheIrish]

I always wondered what "Third tier rights" were.

And Learfield Comm. pretty much sucks. They produce KSU basketball radio broadcasts.

[Lzen]

Oh no...let's not open this can of worms again.

Please do. Don't get me wrong. I don't want to be involved in this pissing match between tweedle dee and tweedle dum. I'm just interested in what kind of dollars each sport brings in. I realize that football brings in the most money. I'm just curious to see if hoops is really that far behind.

[Bambi]

Please do. Don't get me wrong. I don't want to be involved in this pissing match between tweedle dee and tweedle dum. I'm just interested in what kind of dollars each sport brings in. I realize that football brings in the most money. I'm just curious to see if hoops is really that far behind.

It's apples and oranges.

Basketball, many more games and events...much cheaper team travel, etc etc...it's probably impossible to calculate exactly what "each sport brings"

Point is that the economic power of basketball that many schools provide was never going to let absurd things like 4 superconferences forming strictly for football reasons.

Anyone who thought Texas was going to fly all their sports up to Washington, Oregon, and California every year for conference play was just being silly.

Nebraska kinda made sense because regionally they aren't that far from big 10 schools.

I admit, TCU joining the Big East is just weird. That is going to be such a pain in the ass but I guess they wanted to do anything to get in a BCS conference.

[eazyb81]

A Big 12 minus 2 network would be awesome for those of us outside the midwest, but I'm not sure the included schools have the national following that would make such a network very attractive for cable providers.

The Big 12 alumni bases are much smaller than the Big Ten's, and we don't have the rabid following of SEC schools. We'll see, but I have a feeling it won't come to fruition.

[Bambi]

A Big 12 minus 2 network would be awesome for those of us outside the midwest, but I'm not sure the included schools have the national following that would make such a network very attractive for cable providers.

The Big 12 alumni bases are much smaller than the Big Ten's, and we don't have the rabid following of SEC schools. We'll see, but I have a feeling it won't come to fruition.

It would be interesting to see what a subscription would cost. I probably wouldn't pay any more than $5 a month for KU sports. They are on enough as it is around me.

[WilliamTheIrish]

readingf into that article it made it sound like the Big XII (X) channel would be more women's soccer and non revenue sports than anything else.

[eazyb81]

readingf into that article it made it sound like the Big XII (X) channel would be more women's soccer and non revenue sports than anything else.

That's what the bulk of programming will have to be, simply because there won't be enough games to broadcast with only 8 teams.

Outside of basketball season, there will probably be a couple football games on Saturdays during the fall and then constant re-runs of games and coaches shows.

It would be cool to see some old Big 8 classic games though.

This of course shows why it is ridiculous that Texas, and especially OU, think they can support an entire television channel by themselves.

[Bambi]

readingf into that article it made it sound like the Big XII (X) channel would be more women's soccer and non revenue sports than anything else.

The radio said this isn't the big football deal that Beebe promised that will hopefully put a stand alone Big 12 game on FOX mothership every saturday night. That apparently is still to come and it's going to be awesome.

That will be tons of $$ for the 10 schools.

[Bambi]

That's what the bulk of programming will have to be, simply because there won't be enough games to broadcast with only 8 teams.

Outside of basketball season, there will probably be a couple football games on Saturdays during the fall and then constant re-runs of games and coaches shows.

It would be cool to see some old Big 8 classic games though.

This of course shows why it is ridiculous that Texas, and especially OU, think they can support an entire television channel by themselves.

They will probably sign on with radio stations to do sports talk radio during the day like YES does with WFAN.

People in Tex and OK will call in about football 24/7.

[Mr. Plow]

Please do. Don't get me wrong. I don't want to be involved in this pissing match between tweedle dee and tweedle dum. I'm just interested in what kind of dollars each sport brings in. I realize that football brings in the most money. I'm just curious to see if hoops is really that far behind.

Someone can correct if I'm wrong here.

Obviously, football brings in the most money, but basketball brings in its fair share. The main difference is that the basketball money (NCAA tourney, etc) goes to support all non revenue sports. Football money (BCS) does not.