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23 June 2010
Consider the recent financial developments with the Atlantic Coast Conference's announced TV deal. It was predicted by most that the ACC - something of a football disappointment after its expansion with three former Big East members - would not improve significantly on its TV dollars.
That crystal ball effort couldn't have been more wrong.
The ACC went from getting about $74 million a year in its current contract (ESPN, Raycom) to a $1.86 billion, 12-year deal with ESPN - or $155 million annually, more than double the pact that ends this coming season.
Fox Sports drove up the ante, reportedly from $120 million annually to $155 million. Add Comcast (with Versus and regional networks, like Fox) to the bidding mix. ESPN needs more programming to continue enhancing ESPNU and ESPN3.
Time Warner has become a bigger sports player (TBS, TNT, truTV) in dividing future NCAA Tournament rights with CBS. Don't look now, but Verizon and AT&T are new cable players, too.
The Pac-10, in adding Colorado and Utah and negotiating a new TV deal, is expecting at least $14 million annually per school - or about $9 million more than the UCLAs and Oregons average now.
The SEC had $223 million to divide among its 12 members this spring. That's $18.6 million per school. The Big Ten was about $1 million per school ahead of that.
The Big East stands way behind those, but when its TV contracts expire (after the 2012-13 basketball and 2013 football seasons), the riches will grow. The league just has to chart its course along its rocky New England coast until then.
A lot of numbers have been put out there recently for Big East TV revenue, and many of them have been wrong. Here's the Big East TV picture right now:
The conference has a six-year, $80 million football deal with ESPN ($13.33 million per year, divided by eight football members - and a deal that was done in August 2006, as the conference was still trying to find its legs after losing Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College).
The Big East has a six-year, $138 million hoops deal with ESPN and a six-season, $54 million deal with CBS (those are divided by 16 schools). Each Big East football school gets, on average, $3.67 million a year. The other eight (hoops) schools receive $2 million apiece.
So, the Big East is only getting about $45.3 million annually in TV revenue now - or about $1 million more than the current Pac-10, deal, which is about to soar.
If the recent conference agreements can be used as a guide, there's no reason the Big East shouldn't get into the $95 million-$100 million range annually in 2014 and beyond.
How that's split among football/basketball lines won't matter to the WVUs and UConns - because they play both sports.
The big question is who will be getting that dough. Who will still be at the Big East table?
There will be a Big East with bigger TV money, but whether it's dribbling or punting or both, it will be there - and it still will be a big player in some fashion.
