ESPN Gets 2nd Part of Big Ten Deal...

[stever20]

Part of the deal for Fox includes the championship game.

FOX and FS1 needed to get part of the package. They did that, and more. Crazy how Stever is painting it as a bad thing that Fox didn't get a significantly better deal than ESPN. Simply matching them is more than enough.

Yeah the big differential between the 2 packages is that Fox gets the championship game.... That's probably worth actually looking at things around 35-40 million. The other 10-15 is the somewhat priority in selection....

All I've been saying is that I would have thought for $50 million more Fox may have gotten a smidge more in priority selections than we've seen published. The regular season schedules are going to be really close to each other. Sure Ohio St/Michigan is a great game. But like last year, that game wasn't the top rated game of the season for the Big Ten. Ohio St/Michigan St was. And that would be on ESPN/ABC. It's definitely not what Jet said on this thread earlier that Fox gets the top games. It's going to be pretty darn close to 50/50.

For Fox, what they got was a must get. That's undeniable.

What's going to be interesting will be how much of this is on Fox and how much is on FS1. That's the major question going forward. A lot of the Fox stations in the Big Ten area are Fox owned. So they are going to want the Big Ten games on their channels. Fox last year with the Big East did a lot more on the network instead of FS1. It'll be interesting to see if that continues.

[MakScratcher3]

People (read stever) forget that negotiations are a 2 way street. I am sure The Big Ten could point to Fox's ratings and demand more money. ABC and ESPN are the absolute behemoths on the Sports media scene whereas Fox is the midget. For FOX to get one of the hottest properties available and get priority over ABC and ESPN is an absolute steal.

Absolutely. A major, major move for FOX Sports. Period.

[stever20]

The priority that you are saying Fox has isn't all that huge. The schedules that Fox and ESPN are going to wind up with are going to be very close to the same.

look at it:
Fox games:
LSU @ Wisconsin
UNC @ Illinois
Colorado @ Michigan
Wisconsin @ Michigan St
Wisconsin @ Michigan
Iowa @ Minnesota
Northwestern @ Michigan St
Ohio St @ Penn St
Michigan @ Michigan St
Wisconsin @ Northwestern
Michigan @ Iowa
Iowa @ Illinois
Michigan @ Ohio St

ESPN gets:
Hawaii @ Michigan
Cincy @ Purdue
Oregon @ Nebraska
Penn St @ Michigan
Northwestern @ Iowa
BYU @ Michigan St
Ohio St @ Wisconsin
Wisconsin @ Iowa
Nebraska @ Wisconsin
Nebraska @ Ohio St
Illinois @ Wisconsin
Ohio St @ Michigan St
Nebraska @ Iowa

There's not that much of a difference. ESPN gets several huge games thru the year- including 1 of the 2 top OOC games. ESPN only has 2 times where the game they wind up with is not that good at all- Hawaii/Michigan and Cincy/Purdue. Fox has more than that quite frankly- partly because they'll get the last choice of weeks and there's almost always an OOC week where there's no good Big Ten home games. This year it's week 2.

My point is simple. While yes it's great to have the advantage in scheduling, the way it's been spelled out means it's a very microscopic advantage in scheduling. The only real difference between the 2 deals is the Big Ten title game goes to Fox instead of ABC/ESPN.

Also note- we've not seen anything with regards to the basketball scheduling.

[NJRedman]

I never once said that Fox was f'ed. I just think for $50 million Fox would have gotten a smidge bit more. The game selections are going to be close to 50/50 in terms of quality. And depending on things- it's possible for ESPN to actually have a better schedule- if they draft weeks that there is just 1 good game(like week 1 this year where it's LSU/Wisconsin, and then 2nd game is maybe Hawaii @ Michigan). So if ESPN took LSU/Wisconsin, there is a HUGE gap in that week that's not necessarily there in a week that Fox gets..... I think ESPN got a pretty good deal quite frankly.

But they paid more for the first choice. Plus they already were paying 30 million for the CCG so they are paying 20 mil more for the first pick. Yes, it is possible to get a slightly better schedule when you look back AFTER the season is over and yes an OSU/MSU might get better ratings than OSU/UM but before the season starts the advertisers will pay more for ad time during The Game. So take out the 30 mil for the CCG and its 210 from Fox and 190 from ESPN. Yes, ESPN might pick a week where LSU vs Wisc is the best B1G game, but they can counter that with a good Pac/XII game. Like this year they could pick quality games like Stanford (with pre-season Hiesman front runner McCaffrey) vs K State, Minnesota vs Ore State, WVU vs Mizzou or Arizona vs BYU. They could also know that ESPN will take the first pick one week for B1G and they can use their first pick of XII or Pac that week. It's not as bad as you make it seem.

[stever20]

I never once said that Fox was f'ed. I just think for $50 million Fox would have gotten a smidge bit more. The game selections are going to be close to 50/50 in terms of quality. And depending on things- it's possible for ESPN to actually have a better schedule- if they draft weeks that there is just 1 good game(like week 1 this year where it's LSU/Wisconsin, and then 2nd game is maybe Hawaii @ Michigan). So if ESPN took LSU/Wisconsin, there is a HUGE gap in that week that's not necessarily there in a week that Fox gets..... I think ESPN got a pretty good deal quite frankly.

But they paid more for the first choice. Plus they already were paying 30 million for the CCG so they are paying 20 mil more for the first pick. Yes, it is possible to get a slightly better schedule when you look back AFTER the season is over and yes an OSU/MSU might get better ratings than OSU/UM but before the season starts the advertisers will pay more for ad time during The Game. So take out the 30 mil for the CCG and its 210 from Fox and 190 from ESPN. Yes, ESPN might pick a week where LSU vs Wisc is the best B1G game, but they can counter that with a good Pac/XII game. Like this year they could pick quality games like Stanford (with pre-season Hiesman front runner McCaffrey) vs K State, Minnesota vs Ore State, WVU vs Mizzou or Arizona vs BYU. They could also know that ESPN will take the first pick one week for B1G and they can use their first pick of XII or Pac that week. It's not as bad as you make it seem.

True. However in 3 of the 6 years, ESPN gets the #1 Big 12 choice- so if there's a good OOC game week 1 from the Big 12, ESPN gets that too.

I think you're going to find the top OOC games get snatched up really quickly in the weekly draft. A lot of times, it's just 1 good OOC home game in a week. Like could easily see ABC/ESPN take Ohio St hosting Oklahoma- in a game that would get a huge ad buy.

[MUPanther]

FOX get the B1G Championship Game every year is huge and odds are you lock Michigan vs Ohio State up every year. There is your $50 million gap without seeing what the deal really is for football & basketball.

People (read stever) forget that negotiations are a 2 way street. I am sure The Big Ten could point to Fox's ratings and demand more money. ABC and ESPN are the absolute behemoths on the Sports media scene whereas Fox is the midget. For FOX to get one of the hottest properties available and get priority over ABC and ESPN is an absolute steal.

FOX and FS1, if your adding ABC in the mix. FOX is no way a midget, network has Super Bowls and World Seies for starters. FOX put it's bid in and won the 1st half. Big Ten didn't put in demands.

[NJRedman]

I never once said that Fox was f'ed. I just think for $50 million Fox would have gotten a smidge bit more. The game selections are going to be close to 50/50 in terms of quality. And depending on things- it's possible for ESPN to actually have a better schedule- if they draft weeks that there is just 1 good game(like week 1 this year where it's LSU/Wisconsin, and then 2nd game is maybe Hawaii @ Michigan). So if ESPN took LSU/Wisconsin, there is a HUGE gap in that week that's not necessarily there in a week that Fox gets..... I think ESPN got a pretty good deal quite frankly.

But they paid more for the first choice. Plus they already were paying 30 million for the CCG so they are paying 20 mil more for the first pick. Yes, it is possible to get a slightly better schedule when you look back AFTER the season is over and yes an OSU/MSU might get better ratings than OSU/UM but before the season starts the advertisers will pay more for ad time during The Game. So take out the 30 mil for the CCG and its 210 from Fox and 190 from ESPN. Yes, ESPN might pick a week where LSU vs Wisc is the best B1G game, but they can counter that with a good Pac/XII game. Like this year they could pick quality games like Stanford (with pre-season Hiesman front runner McCaffrey) vs K State, Minnesota vs Ore State, WVU vs Mizzou or Arizona vs BYU. They could also know that ESPN will take the first pick one week for B1G and they can use their first pick of XII or Pac that week. It's not as bad as you make it seem.

True. However in 3 of the 6 years, ESPN gets the #1 Big 12 choice- so if there's a good OOC game week 1 from the Big 12, ESPN gets that too.

I think you're going to find the top OOC games get snatched up really quickly in the weekly draft. A lot of times, it's just 1 good OOC home game in a week. Like could easily see ABC/ESPN take Ohio St hosting Oklahoma- in a game that would get a huge ad buy.

And in 3 of the 6 years Fox gets first pick. Why do you think it's different in one way or another?

[DudeAnon]

FOX get the B1G Championship Game every year is huge and odds are you lock Michigan vs Ohio State up every year. There is your $50 million gap without seeing what the deal really is for football & basketball.

People (read stever) forget that negotiations are a 2 way street. I am sure The Big Ten could point to Fox's ratings and demand more money. ABC and ESPN are the absolute behemoths on the Sports media scene whereas Fox is the midget. For FOX to get one of the hottest properties available and get priority over ABC and ESPN is an absolute steal.

FOX and FS1, if your adding ABC in the mix. FOX is no way a midget, network has Super Bowls and World Seies for starters. FOX put it's bid in and won the 1st half. Big Ten didn't put in demands.

Agree to disagree I guess. If I were the BIG Ten I would absolutely demand (or need, however you want to word it) more money from FOX and it looks like that is how it played out.

[stever20]

If the deal was 50/50 on the Big Ten Title game and 50/50 on 1st choice of regular season weeks-but with the 240 for Fox/190 for ESPN- you would be right. But the fact is, the title game alone is probably worth 40 million dollars. Then the slightly better selection worth 10 million. It really doesn't look like the Big Ten did that much at all. Which is probably the biggest plus for Fox if you know what I mean.

[NJRedman]

People (read stever) forget that negotiations are a 2 way street. I am sure The Big Ten could point to Fox's ratings and demand more money. ABC and ESPN are the absolute behemoths on the Sports media scene whereas Fox is the midget. For FOX to get one of the hottest properties available and get priority over ABC and ESPN is an absolute steal.

FOX and FS1, if your adding ABC in the mix. FOX is no way a midget, network has Super Bowls and World Seies for starters. FOX put it's bid in and won the 1st half. Big Ten didn't put in demands.

Agree to disagree I guess. If I were the BIG Ten I would absolutely demand (or need, however you want to word it) more money from FOX and it looks like that is how it played out.

Not really. Fox paid 50 million more than ESPN, but they get the CCG every year (Which was worth 30 million a year) and paid 20 million more for first pick which is almost always going to be OSU vs UM which is the biggest rivalry in the sport. No matter what Stever says they got a lot more of what they needed compared to ESPN. Doesn;t look like they thought Fox would be a hinderance.