Hopefully today we hear the Sun Beast signed with NBC

[Alsacs]

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/8953431/espn-week-meet-nbc-big-east-offer-sources-say
Today, is the 7th and final day ESPN has to match NBC's offer for the Sun Beast for 20-23 million a year. I hope ESPN doesn't match and it gives ESPN more incentive to go all in with SEC, ACC, Pac-12 as its college conferences and motivates them to do a ACC network even if its an SEC/ACC joint venture. Losing the Big East would give the Disney/ESPN a little more money to throw at the ACC. Its pretty obvious with this upcoming FOX/News Corp vs. ESPN/Disney fight that ESPN needs to have its ducks lined up. It will be B1G, Catholic 7, partial football Pac-12, old CUSA under the FOX umbrella and the ACC, SEC, partial Pac-12, under the ESPN umbrella and the Sun Beast under NBC's umbrella with CBS having the SEC's tier 1 rights for College Football.

 

[orange79]

Plus, it would (potentially) open up Big Monday for the ACC!

 

[TexanMark]

Agreed...however couldn't the nnnnnnnBE (how many n's is it up to now?) reject NBC's offer and then reopen with ESPN? ESPN might offer more $$$ but less access. No way ESPN will give the nnnnnnnBE exclusive Thursday nights and 3:30pm kickoffs on the ESPN Family...but they might throw $35-40M at them with more ESPNU/ESPN3 exposure.

 

[bnoro]

Agreed...however couldn't the nnnnnnnBE (how many n's is it up to now?) reject NBC's offer and then reopen with ESPN? ESPN might offer more $$$ but less access. No way ESPN will give the nnnnnnnBE exclusive Thursday nights and 3:30pm kickoffs on the ESPN Family...but they might throw $35-40M at them with more ESPNU/ESPN3 exposure.

Why would ESPN do that? Market value is 23M. So why would they almost double that?

 

[SU2NASA]

Coming up, UConn-SMU on NBC Sports Network Tuesday night football!

 

[TexanMark]

Why would ESPN do that? Market value is 23M. So why would they almost double that?

It has to be high enough for the nnnnnnnBE to bite. It would keep a reserve of content...still waaaay cheaper than the Big 5. ESPN is notorious for hording.

 

[Alsacs]

The Big East "accepted" NBC's offer, I am sure ESPN could match the offer if it wanted too. I bet ESPNU gets higher ratings than NBCSN and if ESPN guaranteed the Big East a weekly ESPNU Thursday Night game and a weekly 3:30 ESPNU game they could match the offer. I just don't think they want to do so.

 

[Bayside44]

The ACC has a lot of content, will have more next year.

Funny it's harder for me to find UNC games in DC than it is to find SU games.

 

[44PRIDE]

Signing the nBE for football only would be worth it for the simple fact that you could force the teams into "off day" games. Tuesday & Wednesday night football.

 

[Orangepace]

Why would ESPN do that? Market value is 23M. So why would they almost double that?

Limited quantity of the resource. This happens all the time in the business world. You bid up, even above FMV in order to control the quantity. Allowing another station to acquire the resource, in this case the garbage content that is the FBE (former Big East) gives NBC control over a portion of the total resource, albeit a small portion that is not as high grade as the others.

I'm not saying that paying double is necessarily the answer and truthfully, I doubt they'd go that high, but power/control cannot be valued.

 

[44PRIDE]

Limited quantity of the resource. This happens all the time in the business world. You bid up, even above FMV in order to control the quantity. Allowing another station to acquire the resource, in this case the garbage content that is the FBE (former Big East) gives NBC control over a portion of the total resource, albeit a small portion that is not as high grade as the others.

I'm not saying that paying double is necessarily the answer and truthfully, I doubt they'd go that high, but power/control cannot be valued.

There is much truth to this. Why give NBC access to college football content at a discounted rate when you can keep the content and give them nothing.

 

[TexanMark]

Limited quantity of the resource. This happens all the time in the business world. You bid up, even above FMV in order to control the quantity. Allowing another station to acquire the resource, in this case the garbage content that is the FBE (former Big East) gives NBC control over a portion of the total resource, albeit a small portion that is not as high grade as the others.

I'm not saying that paying double is necessarily the answer and truthfully, I doubt they'd go that high, but power/control cannot be valued.

Exactly...I just threw out a number...maybe the nnnnnnnBE would bite at $30M and the ability to sell some BB games to CBS.

 

[Alsacs]

Update: Brett McMurphy ‏@McMurphyESPN
Discussions b/w ESPN & Big East still ongoing concerning Big East's media rights deal
Looks like ESPN is employing Mark's strategy maybe to offer a little more money for less guaranteed exposure, but I bet the Big East wants to get away from ESPN for all the damage they have done to the conference.

 

[OburgOrange]

Coming up, UConn-SMU on NBC Sports Network Tuesday night football!

omg

 

[Alsacs]

ESPN has decided too match NBC's offer which is bad for us, but whatever.
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Closing-Bell/2013/02/21/Big-East.aspx

 

[TexanMark]

ESPN matches...will whore out the nnnnnnnBE to the highest bidders.
Not the worst outcome for the ACC...ESPN will likely make some $$$ selling content around the media world.
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Closing-Bell/2013/02/21/Big-East.aspx

 

[OrangeXtreme]

ESPN matches...will whore out the nnnnnnnBE to the highest bidders.
Not the worst outcome for the ACC...ESPN will likely make some $$$ selling content around the media world.
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Closing-Bell/2013/02/21/Big-East.aspx

ESPN had to decide whether to match that deal by today. It matched the rights fee but is not likely to put any games on its broadcast channel, ABC. Sources say ESPN is likely to sublicense a significant amount of games to other networks, such as Fox Sports, which is launching Fox Sports 1 this summer.

Fox Sports 1 will be the former Speed Channel.

The BEGOTW coming up ... right after the drag racing.

 

[DoctorBombay]

Calling Arb...what now, Batman? :noidea:
Seriously, I kinda expected this result, its just good business at that price.
How this impacts the ACC Network is important, but the tv deal reached the other day is also noteworthy.
My conspiracy theory states that the WVU "ACC Jihadists"/B1G encouraged the latest UVA/UNC defection rumors, to take attention away from the new ACC tv deal.
But that's just me.

 

[Upstate]

Stewart Mandel ✔ @slmandel
ESPN pays $15M for one school's network (Texas), will get the entire Big East for just over $20M.

 

[Chris02M]

wonder if espn would sell some(or the majority of football plus some basketball) to nbc sports

 

[phil77]

Like I said in another thread the ACC network was looking for partners. I think ESPN wants the BigEast/C7 to be apart of that for there basketball programming. SEC or B12 as a partner for the Football and Baseball programming and the BigEast for the basketball programming. And the ACC for all sports.

 

[TexanMark]

Phil good points...the nnnnnnnBE will be used as filler. It'll be interesting to see if Big Monday stays or becomes ACC only or a mix of old BE schools.

 

[MaxwellCuse]

23M dollars for the BE. Damn! Marsh got his wish. UCONN got...

 

[OburgOrange]

Remind me, who plays football in the BE again?

 

[goodroc]

Hugg