ConnHuskBask
Shut Em Down!
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2011
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I'm not sure that it actually was a better deal on a net basis. At the time Susan Herbst said that our travel costs were approximately $2 million. So, in a quick and dirty computation, big east media distributions, plus the $2 million travel savings, plus the half million we get from CBS Sportsnet totals effectively to about $7 million. I feel as if that's a fairly close approximation of what the American teams were getting in the first year of the contract. Keep in mind that the American deal also required schools to bear the TV production cost for all sports except for football. Being in the Big East probably was at worst a "breakeven choice."
But I agree with you it wasn't a financial decision it was an exposure decision, including particularly the fact that woman's basketball was going to be put behind a pay wall rather than be readily available on SNY.
The Big East was able to negotiate it's first deal with Fox when the network was beginning to acquire content and needed quite a bit of winter programming.
If anything the Big East in a vacuum is much more valuable product in 2023 with UConn then after the original break, but I'm highly concerned there's just not going to be much demand to showcase the product on FS1 the way it used to be.
