Tag Archives: Fox

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

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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?

 

 

 

Will fans’ wallets benefit from new MLB TV deal? Selig: We’ve held line on ticket prices

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It is a good day for the owners, but is it a good day for the fans?

Major League Baseball officially signed off on a new TV deal with Fox and Turner Sports Tuesday. Combined with its previous announced pact with ESPN, MLB teams will pull in $12.4 billion over 8 years, beginning in 2014.

The $1.5 annual haul more than doubles the current national TV package. All told each team will have in the neighborhood of an additional $27 million to play with.

So what does mean for Joe Fan? I worry that the Yankees payroll will be $12.4 billion in 2021.

During a conference call Tuesday, I asked MLB Commissioner Bud Selig to assess the impact the extra funds would have on ticket prices, player salaries, and competitive balance.

Selig: That question could be asked every year. These are big increases. The revenue has grown. So have our expenses, and payrolls.

I’ve often said, having run a club myself, that everybody knows their own market. They will know in 2014.

Obviously, they are getting a huge increase, but everybody will then determine exactly not only what they will do with the money, but how it will impact their payroll as well as their ticket prices and everything else. We have 30 franchises with indigenous characteristics. It will vary. But they will make their own decisions, based on all of these facts.

(And a pat on the back for MLB)

This is a great day for baseball. In the past, people said, ‘Baseball isn’t this, or baseball isn’t that.’ We’ve proven in last 10 or 15 years that baseball is everything. The great manifestation is to have your outside partners tell you how valuable it is. I’m sure the clubs are happy today.

*******

Then I followed up by asking specifically about ticket prices. Will the additional TV money help teams hold the line on prices?

Evidently, I hit a hot button with Selig.

Selig: I want to say this to you about that. The last eight years have been the best eight years for baseball. We’re going to draw close to 75 million people this year. My father used to say, ‘nothing is ever good or bad, except by comparison.’ We’ve held the line on ticket prices. Baseball doesn’t get enough credit for that.

We wouldn’t be drawing these stunning numbers of fans if the ballpark experience and the price of tickets wasn’t within reason for families. We’ll continue to do that. That’s not my goal, it’s everybody’s goal. Baseball is family entertainment. Prices have to be sensitive to families. We have been remarkably so in comparison to everyone else.

*****

It wasn’t the proper forum to engage a debate about ticket prices. And Selig is right as it relates to recent years. According to Team Marketing Report, MLB ticket prices were relatively flat in 2012, going up only 1 percent.

However, TMR says the average ticket price has increased 47 percent since 2002, jumping from $18.31 to $26.98. Only the NFL, where they print money, had a higher increase.

I live in Chicago, where the Cubs rank third among teams with a $46.30 average ticket price. That doesn’t include $7 for a beer and $25 for parking, assuming you can find a spot around Wrigley Field. TMR estimates it costs a family of four $300 to attend a Cubs game.

Yes, that is much less than the NFL, NBA and NHL, but baseball also plays far more games.

Bottom line, Mr. Commissioner: It’s still pretty expensive to go to take the family to the ballpark. Here’s hoping teams will use the new TV bounty to help keep prices in line.

 

Fox’s Hill talks about ‘second-screen experience’

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Fox Sports Chairman David Hill brought up an interesting notion at the NCTA Convention Wednesday in Boston.

From the Hollywood Reporter:

Hill, the Australian-born visionary who has revolutionized the technology of American sports with everything from the scoreboard box on the screen to new ways to cover the drama of baseball, said “the next big development for all of us is the second-screen experience. I don’t believe that has been explored in terms of potential as it should be. If you look at multi-tasking that is going on, a valid second screen experience (people watching a second screen in addition to the primary screen) – which could be American Idol – is going to be a huge development down the road.”

David, I really don’t need a second screen if it’s going to be used to watch American Idol. And by the way, whatever happened to Picture-in-Picture? Wasn’t that a second screen experience?

Bottom line: Nobody knows for sure what how we’re going to be watching sports in 2025. The execs just know we’re going to be watching, and paying to watch.

On the subject of right fees, there was this passage:

No sports discussion would be complete without some worrying about the rising cost of sports rights. At a panel discussion at the NCTA this week, a Wall Street analyst worried that rights fees were going to put a squeeze on cable to the point it could interfere with their ability to do other things. The Wednesday panelists did not disagree that rights are rising and expensive, but the attitude seemed to be that it is an inevitable part of the value of sports on TV.

“Anybody who thinks they can figure out what rights are going to be worth in 2026 doesn’t really know,” said (ESPN President) Skipper, referring to a recent news story about the sale of some sports rights far into the future. “What we will make a bet on is that the value of sports rights are going to continue to appreciate. We would love it if sports rights would come down, but sports rights are going up because the value of sports rights are going up.”

Hill recalled a CBS executive who in 1977 said sports rights had gone as high as it was possible for them to go and they would not go any higher. What he did not recognize, said Hill, is that “sports rights are the purest example of supply and demand.”