As part of the deal, the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship is guaranteed to be broadcast on ABC.Getty Images
In a year expected to see major changes in college sports, the NCAA has reached a milestone eight-year agreement with ESPN to cover 40 national NCAA championships (21 women’s and 19 men’s (not included)). So don’t waste time refreshing your brand. Men’s Basketball) — along with international rights to the Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament and the same NCAA Championship.
NCAA President Charlie Baker told SBJ that the contract is worth an average of $115 million annually. An NCAA spokesperson also acknowledged that ESPN’s projected production and marketing costs would increase by about 25% on top of the annual value.
The new contract runs through 2032, expires in 2024, and is about three times the size of the current contract, which pays out about $40 million a year. It’s also worth noting that this NCAA deal will be signed at the same time as the domestic rights to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, which are currently owned by CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery. This gives the NCAA significant flexibility in the next round of negotiations.
Baker said the size of the deal reflects the value and viewership growth of college sports programming. “If you look at the numbers for most of these sports, they’ve all done much better over the past few years,” Baker told SBJ. “And I fully expect to see why we got it three times.” [our previous deal] Because they will all do even better in the future. ”
Speculation in recent months has suggested that the NCAA is looking to dismantle some of the previous package owned by ESPN, with discussions particularly focused on the NCAA selling rights to the women’s basketball tournament separately. I was concentrating on what I was doing.
Baker said the NCAA specifically values women’s basketball rights at about $65 million annually, or about 56% of the media rights portion of the deal based on numbers provided by SBJ. That said, he noted that there is a desire to keep the championship under one banner, and that it makes logical sense to package this deal as before. Approved by the parties involved.
“What we’ve always said is we wanted the best deal for every championship,” Baker said when asked if there was any consideration of separating the women’s basketball tournament. “If you think about it, it is [2,300] It requires many hours of programming, takes place over an eight-year contract period, in a huge number of settings with different challenges and on-site situations, so if we can get a production partner willing to take it all on, this production will be a success. It can be achieved. We thought a better way would be to sell at a price that we believed was above market competitiveness. ”
Endeavor’s IMG and WME Sports served as media advisors for the negotiations, which were spearheaded by Hilary Mandel, vice president and head of media for the Americas at IMG, and Karen Brodkin, vice president and co-head of WME Sports. .
Mandel and Brodkin will join their NCAA colleagues, including Senior Vice President of Basketball Dan Gavitt, Director of Championships and Alliances, Director of Broadcast Services Julie Kimmons, and Vice President of Women’s Basketball Lynn Holtzman. , added that they continued to work closely with Baker after he took office. March 2022.
“College is at the core of our DNA,” ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro told SBJ. “And by extension, this agreement really strengthens our industry-leading commitment to women’s sports. The fact that we did this… to maintain our exclusivity in a fragmented world,” felt really important. ”
Other important details of the transaction are::
- The Women’s Basketball, Women’s Volleyball, Women’s Gymnastics and FCS Football Championships are all guaranteed to air on ABC each year, and the overall Softball and Baseball Championships are also guaranteed additional exposure on ABC.
- The package includes nine new championships: Division I men’s and women’s tennis team championships, National Collegiate Men’s Gymnastics Championships, Division II and Division III men’s and women’s basketball, and women’s volleyball.
- Of the 2,300 hours of live championship coverage annually, 800 hours will be shown on ESPN linear platforms.
- According to ESPN Senior Vice President Nick Dawson, ESPN has the right to sell sponsorships for broadcast coverage of the NCAA Championships, including a new feature to sell on-air presenting sponsorships for each round. Programming and acquisition of college sports, including (e.g. “The Sweet 16 Presented by…”).
- CBS/Warner Bros. Discovery retains rights to the entire NCAA Corporate Champions and Partner Program, an NCAA spokesperson said. However, ESPN will be allowed to sell advertising to his NCAA corporate champions and partners or other advertisers interested in the NCAA Championship.
Officials involved in the discussions did not say which other networks would have been interested in the NCAA deal if it reached the open market (ESPN would have an exclusive negotiating point on the deal). If no consensus was reached, Mandel noted that indicators suggest “a lot of people will participate” and line up to chat. ”
“This was not a renewal. I would throw those words out of my mouth,” Mandel told the SBJ when explaining the nature of the contract. “It’s a reset. It’s something that happens in a new world. ESPN is not the same company it was when they signed this deal. [in 2011]. You were looking at them with fresh eyes. ”
Why NCAA media rights agreements are important
Thursday was a landmark win for Baker, who has made significant strides in a short amount of time at the top of an organization that has struggled to break out of its own way in the not-too-distant past.
Baker caused a stir last month when he proposed creating a separate division within the NCAA organization that would allow schools to compensate athletes directly. This forward thinking combined with negotiating and winning media contracts with significant price increases in a volatile media rights market (although discussions about these contracts predated Baker’s tenure) ), this will have a huge impact on his abilities.
“The trajectory of college sports is very strong. The stock is a buy,” Brodkin told SBJ. “It’s not flat, it’s not trending down. It’s trending up. … Media buyers, you can make up 10 reasons why you want to buy a package, but they’re a for-profit company. They’re trying to figure out what people want to see. , and want to buy something that they think can grow their business, expand their fan base, and bring more fans to their platform. So, college is definitely a growth area. , is doing very well.”
The deal is also a major win for women’s sports, which continue to grow in viewership and interest. For example, LSU’s victory over Iowa in the 2023 NCAA women’s basketball title game on ABC was the most-watched women’s college hoops game on record. The University of Texas’ victory over Nebraska in the NCAA women’s volleyball championship in December drew the largest crowd for a college volleyball game on record.
What this means for ESPN
ESPN has tightened its purse strings in recent months. The station passed recent Big Ten media rights deals costing Fox Sports, NBC and CBS $383 million annually. ESPN also defended the possibility of an agreement with the Pac-12 when negotiations with commissioner Georgy Kryavkov broke down, ultimately leading to the conference’s demise.
Still, along with bringing a ton of programming to ESPN’s linear and streaming platforms, there were also hopes to rebuild its long-standing relationship with the NCAA, given the history of the two dating back to the network’s early days.
“What we bring to the table here, yes, it’s a studio, it’s a megaphone, it’s our brand, it’s our production quality,” Pitaro said. “But it’s first and foremost our multi-platform approach.”
What ESPN does next remains to be seen. The network is seeking to renew its rights to the College Football Playoff, and its current deal expires after the 2025 season. This also does not include future discussions with the NBA and UFC.
“The trajectory of this asset over the past few years, especially women’s sports, has been very positive,” Dawson said. “…to have it all [of these rights] We think it’s a great place to be for another eight years. ”