The $7M number is such a farce.
First, it’s not inflation-adjusted. Aresco signed an extremely long 12-year deal. The longer the deal, the lower the “real” payouts compared to the top-line numbers. $7M annually over 12 years works out to under $6M annually in real, inflation-adjusted dollars.
Second, it pushes costs of production onto the schools. As others have noted, these are significant - and they’d hit UConn particularly hard as we’d be the only school producing WBB games. If we wanted to continue to provide fans with high-quality coverage of all FB, MBB, and WBB games, we’d need to make a big upfront investment and pay a significant amount out of pocket for every game played on ESPN+. Figure that’s an extra $1M out of pocket annually (and given some of the ACC network coverage, that may be conservative). So we’re down to under $5M.
UConn says moving to the Big East will save us $2M in travel costs. So if we’re comparing the AAC to the Big East, take another $2M off the annual payout and we’re down to under $3M in value from the AAC media contract.
Lastly, you can’t ignore the fact that the ESPN+ business model involves double-dipping by taking content hostage and putting it behind a paywall for fans who are already paying for ESPN. Let’s say there are 500k UConn fans who would need to shell out $10/month for 4 months to see their favorite team. That’s a $20M tax that Aresco was going to let ESPN levy on UConn fans annually, in return for what we’ve established is a real “payout” of $3M to the school once you account for inflation and added costs.
Unconscionable would be the best word to describe that. There was no way UConn could go along with it. The Big East contract alone is worlds better. If SNY offered us $1/year for football, we’d still be millions better off.
