Ad Age story: College football could overtake MLB as nation’s No. 2 sport; CF more popular with younger crowd

On the eve of the big game, Michael McCarthy writes in Advertising Age that college football is rapidly closing the gap on baseball as the nation’s No. 2 sport behind the NFL.

McCarthy offers several sets of numbers, including this passage:

Other research indicates the Grand Old Game is still No. 2. But the power and pageantry of college football is grabbing younger consumers. Numbers are trending in the direction of college football.

In the latest Harris Poll, 16% of adults cited baseball as their favorite sport, compared to 11% for college football. Baseball’s actually up three points from last year, when the two sports were tied at 13% while college football dropped two points. But since Harris started tracking America’s favorite sports in 1985, college football has gained 1%, while baseball has gone down 7%.

Here’s the kicker in my eyes.

College football was most popular with the 18-to-24-year-old demo and Southerners, according to Harris. Baseball was most popular with 50-to-64-year-olds and Midwesterners. The online poll was conducted from Dec. 12-18, 2012.

I can speak from first-hand experience. My two teenage boys devour college football. They can’t wait to watch tonight’s game. When we came home from our winter vacation, they promptly parked themselves on the couch and watched all the bowl games they recorded on the DVR. It made this father proud.

While they like the Cubs and White Sox, they barely tuned in for baseball’s postseason. Game 3 of the World Series was played on a Saturday night. They could care less. All the boys wanted to watch were games involving Notre Dame and Michigan that night. The same holds true for their friends. Baseball barely registers compared to the NFL and college football.

Clearly, the Harris poll shows that baseball’s popularity skews toward the older crowd. And not to push anyone out the door, let alone myself, but once the older generation moves on, the game is going to suffer if it can’t reach the younger fans like my kids.

Poll numbers only tell part of the story. In my house, and I’m sure in many others, college football already has overtaken baseball.

 

 

 

 

 

Q/A with Kirk Herbstreit: On whether Notre Dame can sustain success; title teams people love to hate

Perhaps tonight’s title game should be renamed the Polar Bowl, because it features two of the most polarizing teams in the country.

If you live outside of SEC country, you’re tired of that conference winning the BCS title every year. And even if you live within its boundaries, you’re probably thinking, anybody but Alabama and Nick Saban.

Meanwhile, rooting for Notre Dame hardly is an appealing option for the legion of Irish haters throughout the country.

All in all, the dynamic should deliver a huge rating for ESPN, assuming the game is close.

During a teleconference, Kirk Herbstreit, working his sixth straight BCS game, addressed the love-hate aspect and talked about whether Notre Dame’s success in 2012 will be more than a one-year fling.

As you travel around the country, what is your sense of how much of the interest a lot of these games actually comes from people rooting against one of the teams even maybe more so than people rooting for some of these teams, and also, how do you think that plays into the interest in this particular game?

Well, I think you’re right.  I think because the SEC has won six straight National Championships, I definitely feel that the SEC, as much as that region claims all 14 teams, when they get to this point, I think every other conference and every other fan base outside of those 14 teams is passionately rooting against Alabama.

And what’s interesting is in this case, Notre Dame is such a polarizing team, where everybody, no matter when you grew up, you either loved Notre Dame or you just couldn’t stand Notre Dame.  So there are a lot of people out there that I think are going to have to make a tough decision on who to pull for, and I really believe that, again, outside of the SEC, most people, even if they aren’t big Notre Dame fans in this case, because of the six straight national titles, I think they’re going to be pulling with all their hearts to see Notre Dame end that streak.

And as far as the interest, any time you put those two letters, ND, in a National Championship game, I think the level of interest obviously is going to go up, and I think the fact that it’s been since 1988 since the last time they won a National Championship, I think it definitely raises the bar of your hype and the buzz of this National Championship compared to any of the other games that I’ve had the good fortune to call.

Have you heard any people on sort of the other end saying, well, I don’t like either team, so I’m not going to watch, or do you think people just say that but they’ll still watch it?

I think anybody that takes the time to make a comment like that, clearly they’ll be watching the game.  They’ll, in fact, watch the four hours of pregame that we have before the game and be blogging and tweeting about how wrong everybody is on those shows.

Without a doubt, people are going to ‑‑ if you’re a college football fan or even if you’re a fringe college football fan, you’re going to watch.  An example for me is Tiger Woods and golf.  I could care less about golf on a weekly basis.  But if Tiger Woods accidentally stumbles into a Sunday, I’m that guy that tunes in and watches golf on Sunday.

And I think if you’re a fringe college football fan and you have Notre Dame and Alabama playing on a Monday night, no matter what you feel about either team, no matter if you despise both these teams, you’re going to be tuned in watching this game.

We’ve seen Notre Dame have these blips before, where previous coaches had a decent run for a year and then quickly fell off.  How is this going to be different?  What’s your sense as far as what Brian Kelly is building there, and will he be able to sustain it beyond this year?

We were around those teams with Bob Davie when he had a team that got in early part of the BCS era when they got into a BCS bowl game, I think it was against Oregon State, and you remember what happened in the Sugar Bowl when they went up against LSU.  This just feels different, not just because they’re undefeated and because they’re in the National Championship, but I’m never one to really pay attention to the recruiting hype of five‑star recruits or why they’re ranked No. 1 or No. 2.  I always like to wait to see players in their first year or two, see how they kind of make that adjustment to the college game and see how they’re maturing and developing.

I just really sense that, as Brent said earlier, with Brian Kelly’s background, I mean, if there’s anybody that’s ever been typecast to be the Notre Dame coach, it’s Brian Kelly, and I think it’s legitimate, his energy and his passion for the school and the way he’s recruiting.  If you look at what they’re trying to do for the future, I think they’re going to use this fifth year as kind of a springboard into the future, and I really believe as long as Brian Kelly is the head coach, with what he has going on right now, if they will hold onto to staff, I think they’ve got something very unique going, and I think this has staying power.  I don’t think this is a, hey, let’s make a run one year and then go away.  I think Notre Dame football has a real opportunity here to be around and compete at a very high level for a long time.

What is the most compelling aspect of this match‑up from your point of view?

I think an interesting aspect of the game is just the hype of dealing with the long layoff, the hype about Alabama trying to win three of the last four National Championships with Nick Saban, the fact that they’re going up against Notre Dame, one of the most storied programs in college football with a new coach who’s reaching out to other coaches who have had to deal with a 44‑day layoff, about how to peak your team at the right time, the fact that it’s uncharted waters for Notre Dame’s program to have to deal with this, and then when they take the field just to see how they both handle themselves.

We witnessed a game last night, if you don’t show up mentally and physically prepared and in the right frame of mind, you can get embarrassed.  And just because that was a Sugar Bowl not in the National Championship limelight doesn’t mean that that couldn’t potentially happen at a National Championship.  I’m sure both those coaches watched that game last night and they both panicked a little bit just to make sure, hey, am I doing the right thing, because you just don’t know until your team goes out and starts to play.

So I think the anticipation of the hype of this particular match‑up and how these teams play early, especially in the game, I think is going to be an interesting aspect of how the game eventually plays out.

Q/A with Musburger: On Brian Kelly and Nick Saban, calling the big game for ESPN, and going strong at 73

Not to date myself or Brent Musburger, but I have a video with old footage of Musburger narrating sports highlights for WBBM-Ch. 2 in Chicago. It was of a Chicago-Boston hockey game featuring players like Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita in their primes. That’s really going back in time.

Now more than four decades later, Musburger’s remarkable career still has him dancing on sports’ biggest stage. He and Kirk Herbstreit will be on the call tonight for the humongous Notre Dame-Alabama title game.

Musburger will dissect all the storylines as only he can. However, there’s one he won’t address. At age 73, how much longer does he want to work?

The question came up during an ESPN teleconference last week with Musburger, Kirk Herbstreit, producer Bill Bonnell and director Derek Mobley. Here are some excerpts with the questions directed at Musburger.

You’ve done so many big events over the years.  Any sense as far as how many years you’d like to go on doing this?

As long as they’ll have me.  I don’t do retirement very well.

Is there still the same charge doing big events as there was even much earlier in your career?

I’m always asked to look back, and I have a very difficult time because I always think that the best event that I am ever going to cover is the next one, so I’m looking at this one, and to answer your question, is absolutely.

What has been your experience in dealing with Brian Kelly and Nick Saban?

They’re not at all alike.  Brian Kelly is the son of an Irish politician, and no one works a room any better than Brian Kelly.  He loves to see you, loves to have your company in the room, and then pretends that he’s telling you everything that’s going to happen, and he always keeps something in the saddlebags.  A very, very savvy coach.

With Nick Saban, kind of wears his emotions on his sleeve, and let me give you a comparison of the last two championships.  When he was getting ready to play Texas in the Rose Bowl for the BCS Championship a few years back, we went into the room to talk to him, and I don’t know, we might have had a half dozen other people.  I always like to have the producer and the director, the spotter, the statistician, I always like to have a support crew, and I could tell immediately that Saban was uneasy with so many people coming into the room.  He had a video frozen of the Texas secondary, very, very good secondary ‑ several of those fellows are still playing Sunday football ‑ and he was kind of sitting there in his chair and he was kind of bobbing back and forth and sort of uneasy about the interview.  And I knew that he was uptight about the Texas Longhorns.

Last year we went to see him at practice in the Superdome, and you would have thought he was getting ready for a September football game.  He already knew that he could move the ball effectively on LSU, and more than that, he felt he could shut down the offense, which he did.

So Nick was very forthcoming about exactly what he was going to do in that game, and then when practice started, he goes to the defensive end of the field.  I don’t think he took one look at the offense.  He has always been a defensive guru since the day he worked with Coach Belichick up in Cleveland and then came to college football.

Both are very open about practice.  Both like to have announcers come to practice, unlike Les Miles, who kicked us out last year for 30 minutes, then let us back in, and we looked at each other in the second half, and we said, Miles locked us out for this?  Both very open coaches, very easy to deal with.  You can reach them whenever you want to.

As someone who kind of was around the Midwest in the ’60s and ’70s following Notre Dame when they played Alabama and Paul “Bear” Bryant, talk about the historical perspective of what it means for these two teams to meet again in the title game.

Well, you’ve been watching the Big Ten here the last few years, and the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame are certainly the best football team in the Midwest right now, and we could not have said that for the last decade or so.  But certainly they have stepped out above, and hats off to coach Brian Kelly who’s been able to do this.  I go back with the Fighting Irish to the days when Ara Parseghian left my alma mater, left Northwestern, and went to South Bend and I was covering as a newspaper man, and I covered some of those great Irish teams of Parseghian and of course Terry Brennan and Johnny Latter and George Connor, I worked NFL games with George, and all of those legendary Notre Dame players I was familiar with back in Chicago.

So I’ve always appreciated Notre Dame, and I understand why people love going to school down there, and there’s nothing ‑‑ in fact, what I miss, of all the things I miss is the fact we don’t do any home games of Notre Dame.  We did four Irish football games this year, but they were in East Lansing, Norman, Boston and Los Angeles.  I would dearly love to get back.  In 1988, the last time they won the National Championship, I did two games there.  I did the Michigan game at night to open it up, and then later in the year the classic with the Miami in which there was a fistfight in the tunnel before the game, and it just continued through.

I love the mystique of Notre Dame, and I certainly understand what’s going on with Alabama and the fact that this could become one of the great dynasties of college football.  If Nick Saban wins this one, this run by the Crimson Tide during the BCS era coming out of the toughest conference in the country, you’re going to have to pay big tribute to Nick and what he’s accomplished at Tuscaloosa.

What do you think the BCS and the future plans for a college football playoff?

You know, the championship game, love it or hate it, and obviously there’s probably more people who hate it than love it, the BCS formula made the championship game bigger and bigger than ever.  We used to have a bowl system whereby one might be playing in one bowl and then two in the other, and then we would all vote afterwards to declare who was the national champion.  But what has happened with the advent of the BCS in my opinion is that the championship game has grown to get up there to rival some of the NFL playoff games, whereas the other bowls have sort of dropped off because they lack some of the importance of the National Championship game.

I’m not sure what’s going to happen in a couple years when they go to four because in my opinion we’re just going to hear more people let’s go to eight, let’s go to 16.  We’ll have to wait to see how that plays out.

Later: Herbstreit’s comments during the teleconference.

 

Sorry Northern Illinois: ESPN gets stuck with lemons with Orange, Sugar and Rose Bowls

If I’m ESPN and I just paid billions of dollars to secure the rights to the Rose, Sugar, Orange and Fiesta Bowls, I can’t be pleased with what I got this year.

With the exception of the title game, the biggies lineup has to be the worst in recent memory. And I’m not just talking about Northern Illinois here:

Orange Bowl: NIU vs. Florida State.

Sugar Bowl: Florida vs. Louisville.

Rose Bowl: Wisconsin vs. Stanford.

Fiesta Bowl: Kansas State vs. Oregon.

It’s almost as if the Notre Dame-Alabama title game is so good, the BCS said we have to balance things off with some uninspiring games. Only K-State-Oregon rates as a truly marquee match up. The others? Forget about it.

Wisconsin has five losses, and just saw its coach bolt. But the Badgers are playing in Pasadena thanks to Ohio State being ineligible for a bowl. Louisville? Somebody has to put an end to this idea that the Big East champion deserves a BCS bid.

And Northern Illinois? Listen, the Huskies are a great story and had a great season. But they barely register in my backyard in Chicago. And the Huskies coach also departed to take over North Carolina State, hardly a football hotbed. Let’s just say it will be the first and only time the Wolfpack job will be considered a step up for a BCS coach.

Will the country really tune in to watch the Huskies play in the Orange Bowl? ESPN definitely will push the Goliath angle. But after a full helping of games on Jan. 1, by the time the Orange Bowl rolls around in the evening, America might take a pass on watching a MAC team.

It isn’t just me. ESPN’s very own Mark Schlabach ranked all the bowl games. While he had the Fiesta Bowl second, he had the other big money BCS bowl games lower on the list; Sugar was sixth; Rose seventh; and Orange eighth. And you can make the argument that the Capital One Bowl, featuring Georgia-Nebraska, should be slotted higher than ninth.

Meanwhile, Schlabach ranked the Oklahoma-Texas A&M match-up in the Cotton Bowl third. Cotton Bowl officials have to be doing handsprings with likely Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel. Fox also is thrilled with the prospect of a primetime game on Jan. 4.

And Fox gets that game at a fraction of the price ESPN shelled out for the BCS bowls.

Don’t think that is going unnoticed by ESPN. While ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit got roasted for expressing his outrage over NIU’s bid over the air, privately the executives were grumbling just as loud in the suites in Bristol. Two of your BCS teams, NIU and Louisville, never appeared on national television on a Saturday this year.

Given its considerable investment, you could be sure ESPN will push college football officials for a system that guarantees the big-money bowl games also are the best games. It also would be a nice thing to do for fans.

That’s not asking too much, is it?

 

 

 

Danielson on Heisman: Up on Johnny Football, down on Manti Te’o; interesting take on SEC coach openings

CBS’ Gary Danielson was in Manti Te’o’s camp for the Heisman Trophy. He thought the Notre Dame linebacker was worthy of the award.

Then he watched Saturday’s Irish-USC game.

“I was all prepared to say Manti Te’o until I watched Saturday’s game,” said the CBS analyst on teleconference earlier this week. “Notre Dame wouldn’t be undefeated without him. But I watched the game, and he went 10-15 minutes without his name being mentioned on TV. That doesn’t happen when you’re a star running back or quarterback. That’s why it is so difficult for a defensive player to win because you don’t get mentioned.”

As for Texas A&M’s Johnny Manziel, Danielson doesn’t think the freshman thing should be counted against him.

“In modern sports, we’ve been able to toss out age as the biggest qualifier,” Danielson said. “Even though, he is listed as a freshman, he is in his second year of eligibility. He’s the same as Tebow (who won the Heisman as a sophomore). Tebow basically was doing quarterback sneaks his freshman year. I don’t see where (Manziel) has any less experience. I don’t think he should be disqualified because of his age.”

Danielson’s partner, Verne Lundquist, also thinks Manziel has a good shot to win the Heisman.

“I would not be surprised if he won,” Lundquist said. “He’s probably earned it.”

********

Danielson had an interesting take on the SEC coach openings at Auburn, Tennessee, and Arkansas. He thinks prospective candidates should have “second thoughts” before diving into those programs.

“It’s because of the expectations,” Danielson said. “At Tennessee, Auburn and Arkansas, people are expecting you to at least compete for a national title every year. If you’re going to leave a cozy job, you better know what you’re getting into.

“They all have unique problems. Tennessee doesn’t have a lot of football players around them. Auburn is in the shadow of the best recruiting program in the country. Arkansas, because of where they are situated, there’s a big challenge.”

 

Lundquist: Yes, there is a SEC fatigue

Give credit to Verne Lundquist. Nobody ever will accuse him of spouting the company line.

“Yes, absolutely there’s a SEC fatigue,” Lundquist said.

Now keep in mind Lundquist makes a living calling SEC games for CBS. Outside of the SEC region, most of the rest of the country is tired of seeing Alabama, LSU, Florida, Auburn, and more Alabama dominate college football. As an Illinois alum, whose school just went 0-8 in the Big Ten, I wouldn’t mind seeing the Illini dominate anyone, even at the Division III level.

After Alabama’s loss to Texas A&M, it looked for a minute that we might be saved from seeing a SEC team go for a seventh straight national title in the BCS title game. But then Kansas State and Oregon lost within a few minutes of each other.

Voila, the winner of Saturday’s SEC title game between Alabama and Georgia earns a spot in the national championship game. And either team will be favorite over Notre Dame.

Lundquist and Gary Danielson will be at their posts for Saturday’s game. During a conference call this week, the subject of SEC fatigue came up. Lundquist showed his head isn’t buried in the SEC sand.

“The level of excellence displayed by the SEC is to be admired,” Lundquist said. “But I’m not so much of a participant in the telecasts of the SEC as to not understand the desire for many people to have a little variety, to have something different. I do understand the feelings from many parts of the country. Let’s have some raspberry after all of the vanilla.”

At least the country will be spared from watching an all-SEC finale, as was the case last year between Alabama and LSU. The presence of Notre Dame will give the game a much different feel.

“The Notre Dame story is the best thing that can happen for college football,” Danielson said. “It’s great for our sport.”

The championship game, though, could present another dilemma for Notre Dame haters. Rooting against the Irish means rooting for the SEC to win another title.

As for the SEC, Danielson also is objective. He questions how strong the league is from top to bottom.

“There’s a large disparity in the conference,” Danielson said. “The top teams are 30-0 against the bottom teams. That raises some questions about the validity of the SEC and just how powerful they are.

“However, I think the ACC will want to vote for them after last weekend. Until somebody beats them, everyone should shut up.”

Check back later for Danielson’s thoughts on the Heisman race and a frank assessment of SEC coaching vacancies.

 

Just talk: Johnny Football finally speaks to media: Georgia QB shuts up in advance of SEC title game

Johnny Manziel actually was allowed to speak to the media today. And guess what? He seemed to enjoy it.

The Texas A&M quarterback has been off limits during his freshman season. He wasn’t even made available for ESPN’s Gene Wojciechowski when he came to town to do a segment on Manziel for College GameDay.

From the AP story:

Manziel said he respected coach Kevin Sumlin’s decision for him not to speak to the media this season because he’s a freshman. But says he’s happy to have a chance to talk about this season.

“It’s kind of nice now to be able to kind of let you guys know how I am a little bit more,” he said. “There’s so many question marks out there.”

Later he said:

“I’m a small-town kid,” he said. “I come from Kerrville, Texas and I still see myself that way. I don’t see myself as Johnny Football, I still see myself as Jonathan Manziel, a small town guy from Kerrville who is extremely fortunate and extremely blessed to be able to play football here at A&M.”

The session didn’t seem too taxing for Manziel. I’ve always thought these coaches go too far in shielding their players from the media. The vast majority are more than capable of handling the demands.

*******

Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray has been one of the Bulldogs’ most accessible players. That is until this week. Murray won’t be meeting with the media in advance of Saturday’s SEC title game against Alabama.

From the AP:

The school said Monday that Murray met with coach Mark Richt and got permission to be relieved from his media responsibilities leading up to the Southeastern Conference championship game between the third-ranked Bulldogs (11-1) and No. 2 Alabama (11-1).

One of his best friends, linebacker Christian Robinson, said Murray simply wants to make sure his entire focus is on beating the Crimson Tide.

“I don’t think this has anything to do with the media,” Robinson said. “I don’t think he’s trying to send message. It’s just something he decided to do this week as far as being prepared.”

Again, would it have been so hard to do one 20 minute session with reporters? I think Murray draws more attention to himself by snubbing the media. It becomes a story that didn’t need to be there.

 

Insanity: More college TV money means more money for overpaid coaches; salaries up 70 % since 2006

The Big Ten will announce the addition of Rutgers this afternoon as its 14th school. Once again, there will be all sorts of talk about the possible $100 million financial windfall for the conference’s Big Ten Network.

The Big Ten is hardly alone. The shifting college landscape is all about TV money. And who are the big winners?

The coaches. Their salaries are exploding.

In case you missed it, Armen Keteyian documented the insanity of college sports finances last Sunday on 60 Minutes.

USA Today has a report on college football salaries today. From the story:

The average annual salary for head coaches at major colleges (not including four schools that moved up to the Football Bowl Subdivision this season) is $1.64 million, up nearly 12% over last season — and more than 70% since 2006, when USA TODAY Sports began tracking coaches’ compensation.

Coaches’ pay has even outpaced the pay of corporate executives, who have drawn the ire of Congress and the public because of their staggering compensation packages. Between 2007 and 2011, CEO pay — including salary, stock option value, bonuses and other pay — rose 23%, according to Equilar, an executive compensation data firm. In that same period, coaches’ pay increased 44%.

Alabama’s Nick Saban is the highest paid at $5.5 million, and he is one of four Southeastern Conference coaches among the top eight. Texas head coach Mack Brown, of the Big 12, is the second-highest, pulling in $5.4 million.

And then there are assistant coaches. The market is soaring for them as well.

Assistants don’t take pay cuts to come to Clemson these days. The school’s compensation pool for assistants has more than doubled from $1.9 million in 2009 to $4.2 million.

Clemson offensive coordinator Chad Morris is the nation’s most highly paid assistant at a public school. Morris makes $1.3 million, more than 10 times what he was getting three years ago as a high school coach in Austin.

“I’m not complaining, not hurting at all,” Morris says.

Brent Venables, Clemson’s defensive coordinator, makes $800,000, almost double what he was making a year ago as Oklahoma’s defensive coordinator.

“It’s embarrassing to a certain degree,” Venables says.

More TV money simply means more money for the coaches. The Big Ten has two coaches in the top six in salaries: Ohio State’s Urban Meyer at $4.3 million and Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz at $3.83 million.

I don’t want to get into a debate over how much money the coaches bring into the school. I just know colleges still would exist without football coaches. Stadiums still would be full if you knocked a zero off their salaries.

The upcoming college football playoff could generate upwards of $500 million per year in TV money. It would be great if administrators would say, “You know, we’re going to use that money for something else besides paying our football coaches.”

And there’s no chance of that happening. Instead, thanks to the new TV money, the $10 million per year college football coach is just around the corner.

 

 

 

 

 

Will they care about Iowa hoops in Brooklyn? Pressure on BTN president to sign deals with area cable operators

Let the record show I wrote the first Rutgers to the Big Ten story. It only took 23 years for it to come to fruition.

Back in Dec., 1989, when Skip Myslenski and I broke the news in the Chicago Tribune that the Big Ten was adding Penn State, I reported on a conference memo about identifying a possible 12th school. Rutgers and Pittsburgh were tops on the list.

However, there wasn’t much enthusiasm for Rutgers. “They`re too far East,“ said one conference source back then.

Not anymore.

The Big Ten finally made its move to the Atlantic by officially adding Maryland to the conference today, with Rutgers’ party imminent. And like the Penn State deal in 1989, Commissioner Jim Delany executed the moves under the radar, which I’m sure pleases him to no end.

As was the case back then, it’s mostly about television. However, the stakes are much higher now.

Back then, the Big Ten didn’t have its own television network. It does now, and the addition of Maryland and Rutgers allows the BTN to greatly expand its footprint. Currently, the network is in 53 million homes and available to 90 million.

Now consider the possible BTN boost from an estimated 15 million homes in the DC (Maryland) and New York/New Jersey (Rutgers) areas. With BTN subscriber fees at an estimated 85 cents per month, the potential windfall is huge. Do the math. Probably in excess of $100 million per year.

Of course, that’s if the BTN can land deals with the various cable operators in the area. A big challenge for network president Mark Silverman to say the least.

Rutgers doesn’t register much beyond its campus in New Jersey. Also, the New York cable operators played hardball about adding the Yankees YES network. So Silverman might not find them to be overly excited about hitting up their subscribers with another fee for a new channel. He will know he is in trouble if he has to explain to them where Rutgers is.

I can hear an NY cable operator now: “Nobody in Brooklyn cares about Iowa basketball.”

Maryland has a much more avid following in DC, but cable operators in that area also might have reservations about the expenses of adding the BTN.

Silverman is traveling today and unavailable for comment. You could be sure he already is in full talk mode with various cable operators.

As a child of the Big Ten, I’m not overly thrilled with the addition of Maryland and Rutgers. With 14 schools, it now means fewer games between the traditional opponents. Illinois-Rutgers doesn’t do as much for this Illini grad as Illinois-Indiana in basketball.

But it is what it is, and the potential money is too much to ignore. If Silverman can cut deals with the various cable operators, the BTN will be that much richer.

 

 

 

$500 million for TV rights for the new college football playoff? ESPN looks willing to pay the price

Old friend Dennis Dodd of CBSSports.com has the first report of what the new college football playoff will be worth. That’s $500 million for three games, folks.

Dodd reports.

ESPN has offered close to $500 million per year for the college football playoff, CBSSports.com has learned.

While negotiations remain ongoing, multiple sources confirmed the amount offered for a four-team playoff beginning after the 2014 season. Discussions are ongoing about the structure of the playoff.

While the figure is not considered a formal opening bid, it does put a per-year value on a playoff. Using $500 million as a high — sources say the ESPN bid isn’t quite that high — a 12-year deal would be worth between $5 billion and $6 billion through 2026.

If nothing else, we have an indication of the value of a playoff. The commissioners went into their annual BCS meeting in April thinking the valuation was at $350 million per year. After listening to consultants, the value had shot through the roof. Now we have tangible proof of the windfall awaiting college football.