Remember this when it comes to TV deals and revenue streams in the SEC, Vanderbilt can still go winless in football and know they will make between $60-90 million per year. Let that sink in.
Meanwhile, the new ESPN/ABC deal with the SEC to take over the 3:30p game that CBS has owned is a 10-year deal worth over $300 million a year. To put that in perspective, the AAC just started a new deal with ESPN that will pay its members about $7 million total per year. SEC schools will make three times as much for just this one game over the span of 13 weeks.
The new deal moves the highest rated weekly game on average over to ABC and also means you may get a heavier dose of SEC on ABC some weeks with the possibility of the 3:30p game followed by that prime time slot on ABC.
SEC schools got a nice check for $45.3 million for the athletic year of 2018-2019. That was second to the Big Ten who saw each member school pocket $55.6 million. Everyone's numbers will be down for the 2019-20 season because of the virus and no NCAA Basketball tournament and numbers for 2020-21 will also be down because conferences did not fulfill their commitment of games to the network partners because of the amount of games canceled this fall and we will see what happens with college basketball.
But the future has never been brighter for Power 5 conferences. It is just that the SEC and Big Ten are going to pull further away from the ACC, Big XII and Pac 12.
Don't shed a tear for schools in those leagues, they will get by somehow on $40 million to Big XII members, $32 million for Pac 12 members and about $31 million for those in the ACC.
But the current media deals for the SEC are expected to see the payout jump to about $60-65 million in the next few years and likely jump to around $80 million by the end of the decade. That is good money but likely will sit second to the Big Ten, whose current TV deals are set to expire in 2023(remember that year in a moment). Industry experts believe the new Big Ten media deal will likely see payout to its members jump to $80-90 million per year by the end of the decade.
By 2030, the gap between the Big Ten and SEC to the other Power 5 league will range from $20-$40 million per year. Look, schools in those leagues will have plenty of money to build waterfalls and smoothie bars inside their facilities but it just won't be as nice as the Big Ten and SEC and that gap matters in coaching salaries, facilities that matter and recruiting.
No one sees another round of conference expansion/realignment on the horizon, at least for now. And conferences only expand or teams only leave a league if there is more money to be made somewhere else. Now you can see why the silly message board rumors of Nebraska leaving the Big Ten for a return to the Big XII was silly. It's always about the money.
Speaking of money, ESPN is still throwing a lot of it towards college football. While the network has gutted much of its staff, both on air and many behind the scenes, the value of live sporting events has never been higher. But they are just spending their money more wisely.
ESPN used to be in over 100 million homes and when you are getting about $8 per month(cable/satellite subscribers) that totals about $800 million a month. Over 12 months that would total about $9.6 billion in just those fees. Today, ESPN is in about 77 million homes. The same math is now about $7.4 billion. It's still a lot but it's also more than $2 billion less. But college football is still a valued property for ESPN and even the new SEC deal calls for a few football and basketball games to be ESPN+ games. That is where ESPN is pushing customers these days and they are hoping that strategy pays off.
Back to CBS for a second and their decision to drop out of the SEC bidding. They didn't exactly drop out. They made an offer of about $300 million per year to keep their SEC package and ESPN got it for just over $300 million. The ESPN offer was about more than just money and that was the deciding factor. So what's next for CBS? Are they getting out of the college football business?
Remember when I asked you to remember that year the current Big Ten media deal expires? The year is 2023. That is the same year the current SEC deal ends on CBS. See where we are going here? CBS would have preferred to keep the SEC game but it wasn't willing to overbid. It will get into a bidding war with FOX over its Big Ten deal and my guess is CBS will get part of a new Big Ten media deal and replace the SEC 3:30p game with a Big Ten game. CBS will also spend billions to keep the NFL and rightfully so. Remember, the best college football game might get 6-8 million viewers. The late NFL Sunday afternoon game? That gets about 25 million viewers.
FInally, what can the ACC, Big XII and Pac 12 do to keep up with the Big Ten and SEC? Nothing. They will see an increase in time because there appears to nothing to slow down media rights for college football. But the gap is growing and the Power 5 is becoming a Power 2 and Big 3. Of course the ACC can do one thing to make it a Power 3. Hello Notre Dame...
Final thought: Venice, Florida is the shark-toothed capital of the world.
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