Mayland thought they were going to get mid 40's million per year. Championship game will be included in this 500 million.
Ticket sales are irrelevant.
BTN is still about 3,5 million per year. They have to repay FOX for the original losses.
NCAAT has potential.
Thy were expecting about 45-50 million. They are getting a lot of money but the fact they took a short term deal tells everyone the money wasn't as high as they expected.
The short term deal may also be a sign that the big players are still trying to figure out the next platform. Too many speculators are "expecting" the B1G to rake in all the cash, because they have for the last decade or so. However, the cord cutters are destroying the very basis of this expectation, which is the guaranteed cable money. Even if the cord cutters (and the cord avoiders - millennium crowd) never exceed 50%, that number is too high for the guaranteed money for basic level cable channels, which will hit sports the hardest as they bring in the most revenue from the cable guarantees at the basic level.
The B1G is not driving this train as many people think, though they will present the "facts" in a light most favorable to themselves. The truth is that the ACCN is not likely to be a cable network, the LHN and the SECN are facing issues (though the SECN will be the least affected). Once the tables turn to people selecting the channels they view and paying for them (whether singularly or in packages or tiers), the people will have gained the upper hand in control (i.e., they get exactly what they want, not every non-sense channel that does not pertain to them). ESPN will not be able to dictate that every person with cable will pay then $5, $6, $7, $8, or $9 per month. The BTN will not get $1.00 for every New Yorker (nor every other state!) which will crush their current business model).
All too often in business, the model is changing and the fools chasing profits fail to see the next profit generating model, and all too often the demise of the very model they are chasing. Trying to apply yesteryear's tactics of the cable network (recall the Big East was the first to do so and that was less than 40 years ago!) while we are witnessing the advent of the new model (over 20% of households have cut the cable already and millennials are simply not getting the cable to begin with!).
It is more likely that ESPN low balled the B1G knowing a few things:
1) The current model is dying a long slow death (we all know that the older generations are not as quick to change, cable will be around a long time and possibly indefinitely)
2) Fox is paying a premium for "up to" 25/50 games. There is no guarantee Fox selects all of these games and the payout is based "per game" not a guarantee of $250MM. Thus if one assumes the general consensus that football is 80% of the deal, Fox is paying $8MM/game average* for football and $1MM/game average for hoops, then Fox may choose to air only 10 football games, equaling $80MM for that year. In short, this may be Fox merely assisting its business partner by over inflating the value of the top level games to garner higher prices knowing the garbage relegated to the BTN is simply not sufficient to entice non-interested viewers (be honest, when was that last time anyone in the B1G watched the Indiana-Illinois football game that was not attached to one of the schools in some way, let alone any of us who couldn't care less about the bottom feeders in another conference). Top level games may worth $5MM-$15MM while midi level may be worth $2MM-$5MM if they can draw the viewers.
3) It remains unresolved how to market games to the cord cutters/avoiders. The potential is still there to make money off of sports fans, but the market will certainly be lessened by how it is marketed as the average person will not be forced to buy "basic" packages that will include useless (the the purchaser) channels. Sports fans may pay higher premiums for sports packages, which may be sufficient to keep the big money in play. Until this is resolved, the people in the know are not going to lay out cash for a dying model.
4) it is still possible that the Fox will pay what each game is worth. Thus, OU-MIchigan may be worth $15MM, while Nebraska-PSU may be worth $10MM, while Wisconsin-MState may be worth $2MM. The actual structure of the deal has not been disclosed. Thus, the potential could be there for the high dollar games, but if team s are not performing, Fox may get a discount on the price.
5) If the alleged average is $250MM/annually, the general method of payouts is to increase annually. Thus, year 1 would be the least valuable, year 2 would yield an increase, etc.
6) The NFL (and the other pro sports to some degree) have seen the value of parity. They know that they have to keep the league competitive to keep viewership and fandom at reasonable levels to keep generating the highest profits. The P5 will have to do the same, though loyalty will ease the burden somewhat, the fact remains that you and I will watch great games that are not involving our teams or conference mates but will not waste a minute watching teams we have zero interest in, especially if there is no impact (i.e. playoffs, seeding) to out team(s).
7) There are probably several more factors that I (a complete outsider to the industry) am unaware of. If I can see these factors, the professionals in the industry surely see more than I do.
The net result is that the landscape is changing, the foundation of the current model is eroding, a new model is taking form but is still difficult to determine what its exact shape will be, the broadcasters have likely been burned too many times with crap games to continue to pay exorbitant premiums for each game without some valuation occurring per game, paying more for teh best games and less for the bottom feeder games.
Thus, the B1G probably is not going to cash in on the big payday they dreamed of nor is their propaganda likely to be as accurate as has been touted to date. Time will tell.