A longstanding partnership between NCAA and ESPN set to expire in a year, leaving the NCAA wondering where to show their games.
For over two decades, ESPN has been the go-to site to watch NCAA championship games. This arrangement worked well for both parties as the NCAA guaranteed that their top athletes would perform on a national stage, and ESPN has added hundreds of hours of sports footage to a college sports genre that is dominated by college football and men’s basketball. The partnership became so comfortable that in 2011, the two agreed to a 13-year contract for $500 million renewal without the NCAA ever taking the rights to the market.
With that deal set to expire in a year, and with new pressure to sell women’s basketball by itself NCAA might be looking to sell individual sports rights by themselves. This means that the next contract could potentially look very different than the current one. As Charlie Baker, who, as of March, is the new NCAA president says, “we dramatically underperform across a whole bunch of other revenue-raising opportunities.”
Now, the NCAA is wondering where to show their games. On one hand, the NCAA can use cable. Cable was reliable and still had much more viewers than streaming services. On the other hand, these new streaming services like YouTube, Facebook, and ESPN+ have been exploding in popularity in recent years. Streaming services had grown and improved so much in recent years that it would be a great idea to invest into them.
One thing that seems certain is that contracts are going to be much shorter. Shorter contracts have boosted the Big Ten well ahead of its competitors Pac-12 and Atlantic Coast. The Big Ten’s decision to renew its media rights for just six years set it up for a seven-year deal that is worth nearly $7 billion that begins this football season. This is also because innovation is now so fast in the entertainment industry that long-term contracts could limit growth.
At the end of the day, the organizations like the NCAA do whatever the people want them to do. The people that watch the games do not vote for changes by voting, but rather if they want to see a change, they will pay for it. If viewers want and are willing to pay more per sport to only watch the sports they are interested in, then the NCAA should do it.
For over two decades, ESPN has been the go-to site to watch NCAA championship games. This arrangement worked well for both parties as the NCAA guaranteed that their top athletes would perform on a national stage, and ESPN has added hundreds of hours of sports footage to a college sports genre that is dominated by college football and men’s basketball. The partnership became so comfortable that in 2011, the two agreed to a 13-year contract for $500 million renewal without the NCAA ever taking the rights to the market.
With that deal set to expire in a year, and with new pressure to sell women’s basketball by itself NCAA might be looking to sell individual sports rights by themselves. This means that the next contract could potentially look very different than the current one. As Charlie Baker, who, as of March, is the new NCAA president says, “we dramatically underperform across a whole bunch of other revenue-raising opportunities.”
Now, the NCAA is wondering where to show their games. On one hand, the NCAA can use cable. Cable was reliable and still had much more viewers than streaming services. On the other hand, these new streaming services like YouTube, Facebook, and ESPN+ have been exploding in popularity in recent years. Streaming services had grown and improved so much in recent years that it would be a great idea to invest into them.
One thing that seems certain is that contracts are going to be much shorter. Shorter contracts have boosted the Big Ten well ahead of its competitors Pac-12 and Atlantic Coast. The Big Ten’s decision to renew its media rights for just six years set it up for a seven-year deal that is worth nearly $7 billion that begins this football season. This is also because innovation is now so fast in the entertainment industry that long-term contracts could limit growth.
At the end of the day, the organizations like the NCAA do whatever the people want them to do. The people that watch the games do not vote for changes by voting, but rather if they want to see a change, they will pay for it. If viewers want and are willing to pay more per sport to only watch the sports they are interested in, then the NCAA should do it.
