Fox Re-Opening the Contract

[McLovin]

You are right. It was off. His response:

Man, my math was WAY OFF. Sincerest apologies.

I did not adjust for the eleventh member: it still comes out to a flat rate to $4.16 per member per year (thus Fox did not incentivize the Big East to expand just for the sake of expanding, which would make sense). While the amounts change, the content numbers do not. It still amounts to at least 41 new guaranteed content slots to offer to Fox (not including UConn Women's Basketball). IF it gets bumped up to $6 million, that would mean each member would need to receive an extra $1.84 million per year (with Fox paying an extra $20 million per year).

So if FOX gets the 41 extra games while maintaining a flat fee per school ($4.16M) what is their incentive to increase it to $6M per school?

 

[CL82]

So if FOX gets the 41 extra games while maintaining a flat fee per school ($4.16M) what is their incentive to increase it to $6M per school?

Extended term, I'd guess.

I wonder though if any collateral promises were made to UConn and the NBE as an incentive to make the deal. I guess we'll see.

 

[Big East Fa]

Fox Sports will be getting 20 extra conference games. Not 40.

 

[UConnRock]

How Fox uses UConn women's games and a few UConn P5 football games will be interesting. This could have a significant impact on the revenue from a potential SNY contract. Fox could see the women's games as a huge revenue and viewership boost and UConn could get no additional Tier III revenue as Fox keeps the games. Not sure how the Fox contract will work with football as there is obviously no BE football connection. I would suspect that the initial negotiations for UConn are with Fox and not SNY.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

Fox Sports will be getting 20 extra conference games. Not 40.

Yeah, the math was all over the place in the original post by that Marquette fan.

It's an additional 20 men's Big East conference basketball games, plus 1 ( I believe) additional game in the Big East Tournament.

Then I suppose having 20 UConn women's games would be very valuable to the league, but it doesn't seem like it was referring to anything but the men's in the original post.

 

[McLovin]

Extended term, I'd guess.

I wonder though if any collateral promises were made to UConn and the NBE as an incentive to make the deal. I guess we'll see.

Gotcha. I'm going to assume that Fox has the exclusive rights to make this decision to extend the current deal or not... anyone know how long the extension would go past the current contract?

A 50% bump would be awesome, but one of the knocks on the AAC deal was the length of time. Unless we are getting P5 level money (which the BE isn't) it would not be ideal to be locked in for too long with how quickly technology and college athletics are evolving.

 

[Big East Fa]

Yeah, the math was all over the place in the original post by that Marquette fan.

It's an additional 20 men's Big East conference basketball games, plus 1 ( I believe) additional game in the Big East Tournament.

Then I suppose having 20 UConn women's games would be very valuable to the league, but it doesn't seem like it was referring to anything but the men's in the original post.

There is a good handful of women's games on FS2. Sunday's on FS1 has Big 12 basketball. I believe FS1 would love to have the UConn women on Sunday's and Monday's.

 

[bendm]

Financial breakdown of UConn's move to the Big East

A look at UConn's financial motivations for making the Big East move.

connecticut.rivals.com

this article projects $8 milly a year in revenue for uconn athletics in the BE as opposed to under $7 in the aac.

assuming the FOX deal reaches the projected $6 milly per team once the contract is re-opened then revenue would get up to $10 milly

 

[Waquoit]

Financial breakdown of UConn's move to the Big East

A look at UConn's financial motivations for making the Big East move.

connecticut.rivals.com

this article projects $8 milly a year in revenue for uconn athletics in the BE as opposed to under $7 in the aac.

Does that include the extra ticket sales?

 

[CL82]

Financial breakdown of UConn's move to the Big East

A look at UConn's financial motivations for making the Big East move.

connecticut.rivals.com

this article projects $8 milly a year in revenue for uconn athletics in the BE as opposed to under $7 in the aac.

assuming the FOX deal reaches the projected $6 milly per team once the contract is re-opened then revenue would get up to $10 milly

Good article. It's nothing that you haven't seen here, if you have been paying attention, but it is a good and fairly complete synopsis.

 

[noeynox]

Football money seems ultra conservative.

 

[CL82]

Football money seems ultra conservative.

I thought so as well but you are talking about 6 games (at least one of which will be FCS) for a team that hasn't had a winning record in nearly a decade. It's programming, but isn't like there will be a lot competitive bidders.

 

[rs2905]

Does that include the extra ticket sales?

I did not account for ticket sales in the breakdown, only because I couldn't think of a way to do that without just guessing at what attendance increases would be, which arena would host particular games, and what the prices would be. So take the numbers I presented at the end and realize you'll have to add a little bit because, let's face it, more people are coming out to see Villanova, Georgetown, Xavier, etc.

 

[Chin Diesel]

Does that include the extra ticket sales?

And when you get extra people going to games, the parking revenue goes up, the concessions revenues go up..........it's a multiplier effect.


Except at UConn where almost none of that goes back to AD.

 

[Rico444]

Financial breakdown of UConn's move to the Big East

A look at UConn's financial motivations for making the Big East move.

connecticut.rivals.com

this article projects $8 milly a year in revenue for uconn athletics in the BE as opposed to under $7 in the aac.

assuming the FOX deal reaches the projected $6 milly per team once the contract is re-opened then revenue would get up to $10 milly

The main problem with that article, and the assumption that just about everyone is making with the new Big East deal, is that we have received zero indication that we will be in control of our T3 rights in the Big East. Everyone is treating it like a foregone conclusion that we are getting that money when the truth is, I'm sure Benedict and Herbst would have made sure to mention that in the presser last month if it were true. Herbst specifically broke down the cost differences between the two conferences and never once mentioned T3 rights.

Getting to stay on SNY is a big boost for the university either way, but the conference will almost definitely retain our T3 rights and pocket the money from any SNY deal with UConn basketball. I would love to be proven wrong, but I don't recall seeing any information to the contrary.

 

[CL82]

I did not account for ticket sales in the breakdown, only because I couldn't think of a way to do that without just guessing at what attendance increases would be, which arena would host particular games, and what the prices would be. So take the numbers I presented at the end and realize you'll have to add a little bit because, let's face it, more people are coming out to see Villanova, Georgetown, Xavier, etc.

Hey Russ, nice job on that article. It really explains most of the moving pieces in a very understandable way.

Keep in mind that there woudl be some upfront infrastructure cost to doing the production for the ESPN+ games as well. I don't know that number is but I wouldn't be surprised if it was substantial.

 

[CL82]

The main problem with that article, and the assumption that just about everyone is making with the new Big East deal, is that we have received zero indication that we will be in control of our T3 rights in the Big East. Everyone is treating it like a foregone conclusion that we are getting that money when the truth is, I'm sure Benedict and Herbst would have made sure to mention that in the presser last month if it were true. Herbst specifically broke down the cost differences between the two conferences and never once mentioned T3 rights.

Getting to stay on SNY is a big boost for the university either way, but the conference will almost definitely retain our T3 rights and pocket the money from any SNY deal with UConn basketball. I would love to be proven wrong, but I don't recall seeing any information to the contrary.

Yep. What we do know is that football isn't part of the NBE deal. The contract indicates, IIRC, that the NBE only has an interest in "some" WBB games, so presumably that means that "some" could be sold to SNY. Whether or not they give up the rights to the remaining T3 MBB is, at you point out, unclear.

 

[Waquoit]

And when you get extra people going to games, the parking revenue goes up, the concessions revenues go up.....it's a multiplier effect.
Except at UConn where almost none of that goes back to AD.

In what universe does having most of the home games at Gampel equal having almost none of the parking and concession revenue going back to the AD?

 

[UConnRock]

The main problem with that article, and the assumption that just about everyone is making with the new Big East deal, is that we have received zero indication that we will be in control of our T3 rights in the Big East. Everyone is treating it like a foregone conclusion that we are getting that money when the truth is, I'm sure Benedict and Herbst would have made sure to mention that in the presser last month if it were true. Herbst specifically broke down the cost differences between the two conferences and never once mentioned T3 rights.

Getting to stay on SNY is a big boost for the university either way, but the conference will almost definitely retain our T3 rights and pocket the money from any SNY deal with UConn basketball. I would love to be proven wrong, but I don't recall seeing any information to the contrary.

I have made this point a couple of times. Fox is going to take what they can and maximize profits. Fans may get women's games on cable TV rather than streaming, but UConn may not reap the financial bnefits that some expect.

 

[kemba]

Financial breakdown of UConn's move to the Big East

A look at UConn's financial motivations for making the Big East move.

connecticut.rivals.com

this article projects $8 milly a year in revenue for uconn athletics in the BE as opposed to under $7 in the aac.

assuming the FOX deal reaches the projected $6 milly per team once the contract is re-opened then revenue would get up to $10 milly

Why is the football buy game part included in this? We can do those regardless of being in the AAC or independent. Being independent might open up some more flexibility but most buy games are done early in the year before conference play heats up anyway.

 

[Storrs South]

Why is the football buy game part included in this? We can do those regardless of being in the AAC or independent. Being independent might open up some more flexibility but most buy games are done early in the year before conference play heats up anyway.

I can’t speak for them but in my own analysis I considered that they can now do two of these a year instead of one at 50% probability assuming they would not this every year. Or at a minimum take a guaranteed payout like a Fenway or Yankee Stadium game that probably nets UConn more money than a home game.

 

[scoscox]

if adding a 12th school wouldn't cause any dilution then the 20 game-round robin wasn't a sticking point for FOX...

I think maintaining the round robin was a sticking point from the big east side. A side effect of that is that we’ll expand to 20 games. Fox is probably in favor of that but they weren’t the driving force in that case