College and Sports Media Midterm 1 (ADV 378S)

Rights Fee

Payment by a television network to event organizer/owner for the network's right to telecast the event.

Affiliate Compensation

Payments made to affiliated local stations in return for carrying the network's programs.

Paramount Global

(NFL, GOLF, NCAA MEN's TOURNEY, BIG TEN (2023), SEC (2023), MWC, C-USA) CBS (formerly part of Viacom) was by far the least diversified of the major media companies. Changed name to ViacomCBS in 2019 and Paramount Global in Feb. 2022. - CBS Television Network - Minority stake in CW Television Network (Majority of CW was acquired from Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery by Nexstar in 2022) - 16 owned local stations (CBS affiliates) - 11 owned local station (CW affiliates) - Cable networks Showtime and CBS Sports Network and cable networks MTV, VH1, BET, TV Land, Comedy Central, TV Land, Paramount (Spike), Nickelodeon, CMT. - Bellator MMA - 130 Radio Stations - Paramount Pictures and CBS Films - Simon and Schuster (publishing) (agreement to sell to KKR for $1.6B) - Viacom and Nickelodeon Consumer Products - Branded websites - Paramount + (OTT direct to consumer service rebranded from CBS All Access)

Disney

(NFL, MLB, NBA, MLS, TENNIS, GOLF, UFC, CFP and MOST BCS CONFERENCES) ABC Television Network plus 8 owned local stations Cable assets include ESPN networks (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNews, ESPN Deportes, ESPN Classic). ESPN Events is ESPN's syndication arm and also owns and operates 17 bowl games and 11 college basketball events. ESPN is owned 80% by Disney (Hearst 20%) Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Freeform, A&E,History, Lifetime (with Hearst), FX, FXX, Nat Geo Radio Disney, ESPN Radio - Film: Disney Studios, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilms, Twentieth CenturyStudios, Searchlight, Touchstone Pictures, 20th Television DISNEY PARKS, EXPERIENCES AND PRODUCTS (THEME PARKS AND CRUISE LINES) DISNEY INTERACTIVE - - - Publishing: Hyperion Books, ESPN The Magazine - Records: Walt Disney Records, Hollywood Records - Disney Theatrical Entertainment - Digital Properties including Hulu, Hulu + Live, ESPN+, Disney+ (Nov 2019), branded websites, purchase of MLBAM spin off media companyBAMTech - Gambling: Ownership position in DraftKings as well as Draftkings partnership sold due to Penn National Gaming deal with ESPN.

COMCAST

(NFL, OLYMPICS, NASCAR, NHL, EPL, GOLF, NOTRE DAME) - NBC Universal - NBC Television Network and 10 owned local stations - Telemundo and 14 owned local stations - Universal Studios (television production and distribution) - Cable assets including CNBC, MSNBC, NBCSN (RIP Dec 2021), The Golf Channel, USA Network, SyFy, E!, Style, Bravo, Oxygen, 9 regional sports network branded "NBC Sports" (and city or region) - Cable Systems—USA's biggest cable system with approximately 16M video subscribers (31M broadband), plus Xfinity broadband and phone. Agreement to buy Time Warner Cable was withdrawn - Film—Universal Pictures and Focus Features - Theme Parks—Universal - Comcast Spectacor---various sports assets including Philadelphia Flyers and Wells Fargo Arena where 76ers and Flyers play home games - Digital Media— Fandango, Daily Candy, iVillage, GolfNow, branded websites, investments in SNAP, BuzzFeed and VOX Media - International Holdings include Sky (UK, Europe and India) - Peacock—DTC streaming service - Gambling Assets include position in PointsBet and small position in Flutter (FanDuel).

Broadcast vs Cable

- Broadcast networks historically received revenues solely from advertising. - Cable networks have dual revenue streams of advertising plus subscriber fees.

NEWS Corp

- DOW JONES (Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones newswires) - Barron's - New York Post - Australian and UK newspapers - HarperCollins books - TV Guide

3-Pronged Test for Title IX Compliance

1. Are intercollegiate athletic opportunities for male and female students provided in numbers substantially proportionate to their respective enrollments? 2. If members of one sex are underrepresented, can the school show a history and continuing practice of program expansion demonstrably responsive to the developing the interest and abilities of the members of that under-represented sex? 3. If not 1 or 2 above, can it be demonstrated that the interests and abilities of the members of that sex have been fully and effectively accommodated by the present program?

5 Levels of Cable Service

1. Basic 2. Expanded Basic 3. Digital Tiers (Sports Tiers) 4. Pay Cable (Premium Channels) 5. Pay-Per-View (PPV)

MVPDs include:

1. Cable systems such as Comcast, Charter, Spectrum (Time Warner), Grande and Cox 2. Satellite systems such as DirecTV (AT&T) and Dish Networks 3. Telecommunications Companies (Telcos) such as Verizon FIOS and AT&T Uverse. 4. Google Fiber 5. OTT streaming "skinny bundles" such as YouTube TV, Hulu + Live, SlingTV and DirecTV Stream (also called virtual MVPDs or vMVPDs).

4 Primary Revenue Sources for Conferences

1. National television contracts with CBS, FOX, NBC and/or ESPN. Largest revenue source for Power 5 Conferences. - Conference-branded cable networks for Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Pac-12. 2. Post-season bowl games including College Football Playoff. 3. NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Revenue and other NCAA distributions 4. Conference Championship ticket and sponsorship revenue, as well as conference sponsorships and conference-branded merchandising After deducting expenses for conference operations such as salaries for commissioner and staff, rent, legal costs, championship events, remaining revenues will be distributed to member schools.

4 Types of Programming on Local Stations

1. Network Supplied Programming - Includes sports, prime time (8-11pm or 7-10pm) *entertainment, national news (including morning news programs like GMA or Today) and late night talk shows. 2. Local Station Supplied Programming - Primarily includes local news, local and high school sports and public affairs. 3. Syndicated Programming - Programming licensed by third party producers and/or distributors to local stations in exchange for barter of commercial times and perhaps cash. (First Run Syndication and Off-network Syndication) 4. Paid Programming (Infomercials) - Local station sells a block of air time (generally 30 or 60 minutes) to a 3rd party, which uses that air time to sell one or more products.

3 Basic Categories of Title IX complaints

1. There is an unequal allocation of resources, and therefore unequal opportunities to play on women's teams as opposed to men's teams. 2. There is unequal treatment in the administration of women's program, primarily a disparity in pay and benefits for coaches. 3. Largely confined to the high school level and below, there is denial of access by female (and sometimes male) athletes to the only team in a sport that the school has chosen to confine to one gender.

Upfront Market

70-80% of Commercial Inventory for a television year (Sept-Aug) is sold by networks in the "Upfront Market", which is typically in May or June. The commercials are sold during the Upfronts in packages across a television series. Example: ESPN will sell commercial packages for their college football season series and a sponsor can not buy commercial units solely in a single particular game.

ESPN

80% owned by ABC, Inc. (a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company) and 20% by the Hearst Corporation. Total estimated ad revenue for 5 networks (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNews, ESPN Deportes) in 2021 = $4B

CFP New Format (in effect 2024-2025)

12 teams will be seeded and comprised of 6 highest ranked conference champions and 6 "at large" teams. Not clear if Pac-12 implosion will change it to a 5-7 model. Top 4 ranked conference champions will be seeded 1-4 and receive a bye in first round and seeds 5-12 will play each other according to seeding (5 vs 12, 6 vs 11, 7 vs 10 and 8 vs 9), with the 5-8 seeds hosting the first round game on their campuses. Quarter-finals and semifinals will be rotated among bowl sites and finals will be held at a neutral site pursuant to a bid process. New 12 team format will negatively affect existing non-CFP bowls. Television contract with ESPN for 2024 and 2025 must be renegotiated and FOX will likely be included starting in 2026 but format must still be negotiated.

How many homes are broadcast networks available in?

130 million US homes (~96% of all US homes)

Retransmission Fees

A 1992 law requires cable systems and other MSOs to obtain the consent of the broadcaster (local station) in order to retransmit its signal and the broadcaster may require a fee for that consent. It is these retrans fees that enable the broadcast networks to somewhat compete financially with the cable networks. In particular, the broadcast networks' sports divisions believe that rising retrans fees will allow them to bid competitively for the major sports events that have migrated from broadcast television to cable (primarily ESPN), including NBA, NHL, MLB playoffs, CFP, Wimbledon and US Open (tennis). Retrans fees have increased from $1B a decade ago to over $11B now.

Title IX

A United States law enacted on June 23, 1972 by President Richard Nixon that states: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."

Subscriber Fees

Fees paid to cable networks on a monthly basis for each household receiving that network by the multichannel programming video distributors (MVPDs).

Title Sponsorship

A partnership in which the sponsor's name precedes the event's name, such as The Allstate Sugar Bowl. Title sponsorship is far more expensive than presenting sponsorship for the equivalent event. Range for title sponsorship of bowl games is several hundred thousand dollars for lower-tier bowl games to over$25M/yr for CFP games. Title or presenting sponsorships are typically paid by the sponsor to an event owner and not to the television networks, but the networks do have requirements that in order to place the title or presenting sponsor's name in the telecast, the sponsor must purchase a certain number of units at a large premium to the CPM typically paid for that event's telecast. ESPN sells all title and presenting sponsorships for CFP Bowls. Presenting Sponsor, e.g., Rose Bowl presented by Capital One Venture X (only presenting sponsor for bowl games...all the rest are title sponsors).

Measuring Ratings

AC Nielsen Company has a monopoly on measuring television ratings, which are referred to simply as "Nielsens" "People meters" measure national television ratings and trackwhat program is being watched and who in the HH (ages 2 and above) is watching. Measuring out of home (OOH) viewing and streaming is problematic for Nielsen, the networks and ad agencies and Nielsen just started measuring OOH viewing in September 2020. Networks want ratings based on Total Audience Delivery (TAD), which includes viewership of both linear television (live and recorded) and streaming.

Pac-12

ARIZONA, ARIZONA STATE, CALIFORNIA, COLORADO, OREGON, OREGON STATE, STANFORD, UCLA, USC, UTAH, WASHINGTON, WASHINGTON STATE (All members except Oregon St and Washington St are leaving in July of 2024). Pac-12 Networks are 100% owned by the conference and its members (unlike the Big 10 Network (FOX), SEC Network (ESPN) and ACC Network (ESPN). The Pac-12 Networks have been a huge disappointment in terms of revenue and distribution for Pac-12 members (only ~$2.5M per school/year) 6 Regional Sports Networks (RSNs): 1. Pac-12 Arizona (UA and ASU) 2. Pac-12 Los Angeles (USC and UCLA) 3. Pac-12 Oregon (UO and OSU) 4. Pac-12 Washington (UW and WSU) 5. Pac-12 Bay Area (Stanford and Cal) 6. Pac-12 Mountain (Utah and Colorado)

AT&T/Warner Bros. Discovery

AT&T acquired DirecTV in 2015 for $67B and Time Warner (rebranded Warner Media) in 2018 for $85B. 30% of DirecTV and UVerse sold by AT&T to privateequity firm for $7.8B, with valuation of the entire pay tv unit of $16B. In May of 2021, AT&T announced merger with Discovery where AT&T would receive $43B and deal closed in April 2022. Combined company is called Warner Bros. Discovery - Film: Warner Brothers Studios, New Line Cinema, Castle Rock Entertainment. - Digital properties include HBO MAX, TMZ (sold to FOX in 2021), Bleacher Report, The Smoking Gun, PGA.com, March Madness Live, NCAA.com, NBA Digital, Branded websites Time Warner Merged with AOL in 2000 in a deal valued at $350B, still the biggest merger in US history (AOL acquired Time Warner for $164B). Case study of merger taught in many B-Schools as the biggest failure in American corporate history.• Internet bubble burst in 2000 and in 2002, combined company took a loss of $99B, the biggest yearly loss in US corporate history. Time Warner finally acknowledged the merger was an unsalvageable failure in 2009 and spun off AOL.

Off-network Syndication

After a program has been produced for 100 episodes (generally about 5 years on a broadcast network), the network or producer/distributor will syndicate re-reruns to local stations. Examples: Friends, Family Guy, Seinfeld

Mountain West Conference

Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Hawaii (football only) Nevada, New Mexico, San Diego State, San Jose State, UNLV, Utah State and University of Wyoming. Possible merger or combining of Mountain West and Oregon State and Washington State from Pac-12

Mid American Conference (MAC)

Akron, Ball State, Bowling Green, Buffalo, Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Kent State, Massachusetts (football only), Miami (Ohio), Northern Illinois, Ohio, Toledo, Western Michigan

Southeastern Conference (SEC)

Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt (Oklahoma and Texas on July 1, 2024) In 1994, the SEC broke up the CFA when it agreed to a separate 5 year, $85M contract with CBS after CBS had lost the NFL contract to FOX. The SEC also signed a cable deal with ESPN. SEC has equal revenue sharing of all conference revenues (CBS, ESPN, SEC Network, CFP and bowl games, conference championships and NCAA basketball tournament). - Also had no grant of right until 2021 and has no exit fee for members that wish to leave. SEC Network: - Launched in August of 2014. - Most successful cable network launch in television history and reached almost 70M homes upon launch (less than 60M currently). - 20 year agreement between ESPN and SEC through 2033-34.

Sanity Code (1948)

Alleviate the proliferation of exploitive practices in recruitment of student-athletes and created a commission to interpret rules and investigate violations. Only sanction of commission was expulsion, which was so severe that commission ended up doing nothing and failed. NCAA then repealed Sanity Code and created a committee on infractions, which had much broader sanctioning authority. Key development for NCAA in 20th Century was hiring Walter Byers as Executive Director in the early 1950's. Byers ran NCAA for almost 40 years and strengthened the NCAA by strengthening enforcement and taking over television rights to football from the schools. NCAA never exercised control over television rights to regular season college basketball or any sport other than football.

Sun Belt Conference

Appalachian State, Arkansas State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, James Madison, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe, Marshall, Old Dominion, South Alabama, Southern Mississippi, Texas State, Troy

Big 12

Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, TCU (2012), Texas, Texas Tech, West Virginia (2012) Texas and Oklahoma will be departing for SEC on July 1, 2024 BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF joined Big 12 on July 1, 2023 and Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah will be joining the Big 12 on July 1, 2024. Big Eight - Colorado, Iowa St, Kansas, KSU, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, OSU SWC - Baylor, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech (Arkansas left SWC for SEC in 1990) Rumors of UT and A&M also going to SEC caused alumni of TTU and Baylor who were in the Texas legislature to threaten a cutoff of oilfield royalties. Ann Richards, the Governor of Texas, as well as the Lt. Governor, were Baylor graduates. For UT and OU, the Big 12 had an "exit fee" of 2 years of conference distributions, or approximately $85M per school. Separately, UT and OU had signed a "grant of rights" for their home games with the conference through June 30, 2025. UT and OU negotiated a fee of $50M each for the right to leave the Big 12 one year early on July 1, 2024. The schools end up paying nothing to leave the Big 12 early.

Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC)

Boston College, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami, North Carolina, NCState, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Virginia,Va Tech, Wake Forest - Arriving 2024: Stanford, California, SMU ACC had a contract with ESPN/ABC that expired in 2010 and covered rights only to football for an AAV of approximately $37M/yr, and a basketball-only contract with Raycom that expired after the 2010-11 season and also paid about $37M/yr. ACC's total television revenue from those contracts was approximately $74M/yr. In May of 2010, ESPN outbid FOX for ACC television rights in a 12 year deal with an AAV of $155M/yr, or about $13M per school. Shortly thereafter, both the Big 12 and Pac-12 signed television deals that dwarfed the ACC in terms of per school revenue, which upset ACC presidents and ADs. ESPN must pay a pro rata (the amount each current ACC school receives) increase in their rights fee for the addition of Stanford, California and SMU starting in 2024-25 (Stanford and Cal agreed to take 30% share for 7 years and SMU agreed to take no media revenue for 9 years.)

Big East (Present)

Butler, Connecticut, Creighton, DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, Seton Hall, St John's, Villanova, Xavier. Primarily a basketball conference (FOX) and does not play FBS (D1-A) level football.

College Football Association (CFA) 1976

By the 1970's, major football schools were frustrated with an activist NCAA where schools with small budgets that didn't play big-time football had the same vote within the NCAA as a major football school such as Texas or Alabama. - Even if teams were playing in the second-tier games, they would still be charged by the NCAA the same appearance fee as the tier one teams that were nationally broadcasted. This problem caused a number of major conferences to join together to form the College Football Association (CFA) as a lobbying group to influence the NCAA. 63 member schools, including members of the Big Eight, SEC, SWC, ACC, WAC and independents ND, Penn State and Pitt Problem with CFA was Big Ten and Pac-8 (became Pac-10 in 1978 when ASU and UA joined) refused to become members, which essentially doomed the CFA from the outset. NCAA executed contracts with both ABC and CBS (and later another small deal with WTBS), but the CFA schools were not satisfied and so negotiated CFA-only deal with NBC for Saturday night prime-time games (NCAA threatened to expel any CFA school that was part of the NBC deal.) NCAA tried to placate the CFA schools by making a more selective division 1-A which required schools in 1-A to average 17,000 in attendance or have a stadium with a seating capacity of at least 30,000, which resulted in the Ivies and other conferences moving down to a new Division 1-AA. CFA again had a split in its membership and abandoned the NBC contract for Saturday prime-time games. OU and Georgia sued NCAA claiming NCAA's control over televised football restricted price and output, therefore making it an illegal monopoly in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. (Federal Court ruled in favor of OU, UGA)

National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA)

Competing organization comprised of 250 member-institutions, the majority of which are private, faith-based colleges and universities with smaller athletic budgets than NCAA Division 3 schools. JUCOs promote and supervise junior college sports.

CBS

CBS Sports Network is in approximately 50 million homes and receives a sub fee of $.26/mo. Has a high volume of lower quality college programming, including football from MWC, C-USA, Patriot League, WCC, American Athletic Conference, MAC (sublicense from ESPN), Army, Navy and Air Force football as well as men's basketball from above conferences as well as Atlantic 10 and Big East (sublicense from FOX). CBS has invested limited financial resources into CBS Sports Network and there is little chance that it will be even a minor competitor to ESPN, let alone Fox Sports 1. CBS Sports Network doesn't subscribe to Nielsen and isn't measured for ratings.

Cord Cutting

Canceling or forgoing a cable TV subscription or landline telephone connection in favor of alternative Internet-based or wireless service

FS1 and FS2

College programming on Fox Sports 1 includes Pac- 12, Big 12, Big Ten and C-USA. Also has 12 year, $500M contract with Big East Conference for basketball. FS1 will also be covering MLB, soccer (including World Cup, Bundesliga), WWE, motorsports (NASCAR). Fox Sports 2 will cover some college sports, soccer and motorsports, but is mainly an overflow channel for Fox Sports 1.

Over-The-Top Services (OTT)

DTC streaming services that don't require a traditional cable box

Skinny Bundle Streaming Services

Dish Network (satellite) launched the first vMVPD internet streaming service in 2015 called Sling TV, which included approximately 30 popular cable networks such as ESPN, ESPN2, CNN, TBS, TNT and Disney Channel and started as $20 per month. Service was aimed at "cord cutters" (those who wished to cancel their bundled cable or satellite services) and "cord nevers" (those who have never subscribed to a bundled service).

Cable Networks

Dual Revenue Streams of Subscriber Fees (paid by MVPDs) and Ad Sales Just one "feed" which is relayed by their affiliates instantaneously regardless of time zone. Affiliates are cable systems, satellite systems, telcosystems and "skinny bundle" streaming services (collectively MSOs or MVPDs) whereas broadcast network affiliates are local television stations.

Rare ESPN Misses

ESPN Classic: Purchased in 1997 for $175M, Swapped for ESPNU in 1997 and shut down onJanuary 1, 2022. Mobile-ESPN: ESPN went into the wireless phone business but signed up just 30,000 customers when break even was 500,000 customers. Losses were over $100M when venture was canceled in 2006. ESPN 3D: Network was canceled in 2013 after 3 years due to low adoption rate. Only 300,000 subs. Producing 3D coverage is very expensive.

ESPN: ACQUISITION OF SEC RIGHTS AND SWAP OF ESPN CLASSIC FOR ESPNU

ESPN essentially financed the SEC deal primarily by developing ESPNU into a profitable network via increased sub fees and ad revenues, and secondarily by providing a large inventory of quality SEC football and basketball games for which ESPN and ESPN2 were also able to generate additional ad revenues.

Ratings

Each ratings point equals 1% of the total universe of HHs watching a program. A 1 Rating for a broadcast network is 1% of the 130M HHs in the broadcast universe = 1.3M HHs whereas a 1 rating for a cable network is 1% of the 76M HHs in the pay tv universe = 760,000 HHs. Rating points measure households, not viewers. Ratings results also include demographic information that networks and advertisers use in setting advertising rates, such as ages of viewers (*18-49 is demo desired by most advertisers), gender, race, income and education level. Rating = Share x HUT

Production Costs

Expenses incurred by a television network to produce coverage of an event, including equipment rental, personnel salaries, travel expenses, transmission costs, etc.

Must Carry Rule

FCC rule that a local broadcast station has the right to require a cable or telco system to carry its signal in that station's designated market area (DMA). If the local station invokes the Must Carry Rule, the station is deemed to have consented to the retransmission of its signal and can not then demand a retrans fee from the cable system or other MVPD. Each local station must choose between "Must Carry" and Retransmission Consent every 3 years.

Tiered Rights

First Tier Rights: Conference telecast rights sold to over-the-air broadcast networks such as ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX. Second Tier Rights: Conference telecast rights sold to cable networks, including ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, FOX Sports 1, Fox Sports 2, NBCSN, CBS Sports Network. Third Tier Rights: Telecast and digital rights to games that are retained and sold by the individual schools instead of the conferences, although each of schools in the Power 5 conferences (other than the Big 12) has pooled most of its third tier rights in a conference-branded network. - Longhorn Network

Conference-USA

Florida-International, Jacksonville State, Liberty, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee State, New Mexico State, Sam Houston State, Texas-El Paso, Kennesaw State (2024)

Households Using Television (HUT)

HHs watching TV/total HH universe

Big Ten

Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland (ACC 2014), Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Ohio State, Oregon (Pac-12 2024) Penn State, Purdue, Rutgers (AAC 2014), UCLA (Pac-12 2024), USC (Pac-12 2024), Washington (Pac-12 2024) Wisconsin Big Ten is the oldest D-1 athletics conference in the country, dating back to 1895. Big Ten had a 10 yr, $1B contract for first and second tier rights to football and men's basketball with ESPN/ABC and a smaller first tier deal for basketball with CBS. Those contracts expired after the 2016-17 season and not withstanding the population loss in Big Ten states, FOX and ESPN deemed the Big Ten a "must have" and made a new six year deal starting in 2017-18 worth an average of $430M/yr ($240M for FOX, $190M for ESPN). Big Ten Conference owns 39% of Big Ten Network (FOX owns 61%). BTN is a national cable sports network and was the first successful conference-owned cable network (The Mtn).

Television Market (also referred to as DMA)

In the Austin DMA, ABC affiliate is KVUE (owned by Tegna), CBS affiliate is KEYE (owned by Sinclair), NBC affiliate is KXAN (owned by Nexstar) and FOX affiliate is KTBC (owned by FOX).

College Football Playoff (CFP)

In the years leading up to 1992, conferences all had tie-ins to certain bowls to send their champions to that bowl. Early November selections. - Pac-10 and Big Ten champions to Rose Bowl - SEC champion to Sugar Bowl - Big 8 champion to Orange Bowl - SWC champion to Cotton Bowl 1992-94: 5 major conferences and Notre Dame addressed problem of split national champions by forming the Bowl Coalition to try to crown a national champion. Conferences retained historical bowl tie-ins but top 2 teams would be released from tie-ins and be paired in "National Championship Game". 1995-98: Bowl Coalition was replaced by Bowl Alliance, but problem continued of Big Ten and Pac-10 not participating and still sending their conference champions to the Rose Bowl. 1998: BCS was formed and Big Ten, Pac-10 and Rose Bowl also became part of the BCS. Prior to BCS, the bowls owned all media and sponsorship rights and sold the media rights to a television network. BCS (largely the major 6 conferences and Notre Dame) then took over ownership and sale of media and most sponsorship rights to the bowls, including title sponsor. - Big 12 champ to Fiesta Bowl - SEC champ to Sugar Bowl - Pac-10 and Big Ten champs to Rose Bowl - ACC or Big East champ to Orange Bowl 2014-2024: CFP, 7 bowl games (3 playoff games and a NCG, top 4 teams chosen by CFP Selection Committee, 4 additional bowl games) - 3 "Contract" bowls: Rose (Pac-12 champ vs Big Ten champ); Sugar (SEC champ vs Big 12 champ) and Orange (ACC champ vs SEC#2 or Big Ten #2 or Notre Dame). During the initial 12 yr CFP term, SEC and Big Ten were each guaranteed a minimum of 3 Orange Bowl appearances and Notre Dame a maximum of 2. - 3 "Host" or "Access" bowls: Cotton, Fiesta, Peach Conference champs from 5 power conferences are guaranteed slots in one of the New Year's Six bowls. The highest ranked team from among AAC, MWC, C-USA, Sun Belt and MAC ("Group of 5") is guaranteed a slot in one of the New Year's Six Bowls. Each football independent (Army, U Mass, UConn) will receive $318K for being a potential CFP participant as well as $300K if they meet the NCAA's Academic Progress Rate (APR) for participating in a post-season bowl game.

First-Run Syndication

Means that the program makes its original broadcast on the local station. Examples: Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, Ellen, Judge Judy

Cost per Thousand (CPM)

Metric that cable and broadcast networks use to set the price of their commercial units in the upfront market. It refers to the cost of the commercial unit per thousand viewers. ESPN has the highest CPMs in network television. Price of commercial/total viewers x 1000

The Conan O'Brien "Tonight Show" Saga 2009-10

NBC moved Jay Leno from the 11:35pm ET slot up to prime time at 10pm. At the time, Conan was in the 12:35am ET slot and had a contract with NBC that promised him the prestigious 11:35pm Leno slot if Leno ever moved from that time slot, so NBC moved Conan up to Leno's old 11:35pm ET slot. Conan's ratings in the old Leno slot at 11:35pm were disastrously lower than Leno's when Leno was in that slot (49% lower), so NBC decided to return Leno to 11:35pm (but only for 30 minutes rather than 60 minutes) and asked Conan to take a new 12:05am, slot but Conan refused, which was his right under his NBC contract. Conan reached a settlement with NBC where they paid off the balance of his contract ($45M including for his crew) and he left the network. Moreover, the FOX affiliates had different length contracts for their 11:30pm syndicated programming and they would not be able to "clear" Conan's show until their syndication contracts expired, which in the case for some affiliates was over 5 years in the future. The result was that Conan's ratings would be very low until all affiliates were able to "clear" Conan's show. FOX also refused to give Conan ownership of his show or digital rights. TBS, as a cable network already programmed the full 24 hours on its schedule. Therefore, TBS did not have the same issues with pre-existing syndication contracts as FOX affiliates did and TBS was able to immediately offer Conan the 11pm time slot. TBS also gave Conan ownership of his show and digital rights.

NBCSN

NBCSN was owned by Comcast and in approximately 81 million homes and received a sub fee of $.52/mo in 2021 NBCSN was shut down at the end of 2021 and its premier programming was transferred to USA Network in order that USA Network can be positioned similarly to TBS and TNT as general entertainment networks with premier sports events as well.

FOX Corp.

NEWS CORP SPLIT INTO 2 COMPANIES IN JUNE OF 2013 21ST CENTURY FOX HELD THE ENTERTAINMENT ASSETS, INCLUDING TELEVISION AND FILM NEWS CORP HELD THE PUBLISHING ASSETS BOTH COMPANIES REMAINED CONTROLLED BY RUPERT MURDOCH In December of 2017, Fox and Disney reached a $71B agreement for Disney to acquire most of FOX's assets. The deal closed in March of 2019. Remaining Assets in FOX Corp: - FOX and MyNetwork broadcast networks - 28 local television stations (including KTBC in Austin, KDFW in Dallas, KRIV in Houston). - Cable networks including FOX Sports 1 (formerly Speed), FOX Sports 2 (formerly Fuel), Big Ten Network (FOX 51%, Big Ten Conference 49%), FOX Deportes, FOX News Channel, FOX Business Channel. - FOX's sports rights include NFL, NASCAR, MLB, MLS, (ex-USGA), WorldCup, BTN, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, Big East, WWE. - Digital assets include Tubi, TMZ (purchased in 2021), Fox-branded websites - Gambling: Ownership of FOX Bet and position in Flutter, which owns FanDuel

Formula for determining profit (loss) for a network's acquisition and telecasting of a sports event

Net Advertising/Sponsorship Revenue - Rights Fee - Production Cost = Profit (Loss)

Make-goods (also known as Audience Deficiency Units or ADUs)

Networks will make ratings or audience guarantees for sponsors that buy a package of commercial units in the Upfront Market (but not for Scatter sales). If the programs don't meet the network's guarantee, the network will provide the sponsor with additional commercial units at no extra charge, and these commercials are known as "make-goods".

Advertising Revenue

Number of Commercial Units x Avg Unit Price x 0.85 (deduct 15% ad agency commissions) = Net ad revenue

Reach

Number of unduplicated HHs or people who viewed a program or commercial during a specific time period.

Sport-Specific and General Interest Networks

Other national cable network competitors to ESPN include sport specific networks such as NFL Network, MLB Network, NBA TV, The Golf Channel, Tennis Channel, as well as general interest cable networks with major sports coverage such as TNT and TBS and USA Network.

Share

Percentage of households watching TV that are watching a particular program at a particular time, and is calculated as follows: Share = Ratings/HUT

Pay TV Penetration

Percentage of total US television homes that subscribe to a live pay television service and was ~58% (76M Pay TV homes out of 130M total TV homes in 2023)

National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)

Primary organization governing intercollegiate sports in the US. Membership is voluntary and there are over 1100 colleges and universities in 98 conferences in the NCAA. President Roosevelt felt there needed to be an official group to regulate rules for competitions after trying to decide whether or not college football should be abolished (18 deaths in 1905 from intercollegiate football.) Division 1: 350 member institutions, which are generally the largest institutions with the biggest athletics budgets and most scholarships. Division 2: 300 member institutions, which provide athletic scholarships like Division 1 but with far lower athletic department budgets (partial scholarship) Division 3: 450 member-institutions and is the largest NCAA division both in terms of number of members and number of participating student-athletes (no athletic scholarships). Currently has no financial control over FBS-level college football, including postseason bowl games and CFP. For FCS, NCAA runs the 24-team playoffs.

Broadcast Network

Program supplier to between 200 and 230 affiliated and/or owned local television stations. Each network (or parent) is permitted to own affiliated local stations that as an aggregate reach not more than 40% of the approximately 130M broadcast television households in the US. Examples: ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, PBS, CW, MyNetwork, Telemundo, Univision

ESPN (Conference Realignment)

Rumored to be behind move by Pitt and Syracuse from Big East to ACC in 2011. Also was accused of working with the AAC to pick off remaining Big 12 schools when UT and OU announced they were heading to SEC.

Gross Ratings Points (GRP)

Sum of the ratings for all programs in a schedule. Historically was the metric that broadcast networks used to set the price of their commercial units in the upfront market, so the pricing was based on household viewing and not individual viewing (now trend is to use CPMs in pricing).

Frequency or Average Frequency

The average number of times a HH or person viewed a program or commercial during a specified time period.

Scatter Markets

The remainder of commercial inventory that is not sold during the Upfront Market is sold in the "Scatter Market". Scatter sales are for commercial units in a particular program (not commercial packages for an entire series like those sold during the Upfronts) and scatter units are sold closer to the time that the program is scheduled for telecast. If the Nielsen ratings for a series are bad and substantially under-deliver on the ratings guarantees, the scatter market will be very tight and commercial units sold in the scatter market will be more expensive (despite the low ratings) because the network is forced to provide so many make-goods to sponsors that there are relatively few scatter units available to purchase.

American Athletic Conference (AAC), formerly the Big East

UAB, East Carolina, Florida Atlantic, Memphis, UNC-Charlotte, North Texas, Rice, South Florida, SMU (leaving for ACC in 2024), Temple, UTSA, Tulane, Tulsa, Wichita State (non-football) Big East was formed in 1979 primarily as a basketball conference with Georgetown, Seton Hall, Providence, St John's, Syracuse, Connecticut and Boston College. Added Villanova in 1980 and Pittsburgh in 1982 (Penn State applied for membership in 1982 but was rejected). NBC makes offer for TV rights of 6 years and $130M ($22M per year). ESPN exercises its right to match NBC's offer and signs contract with AAC for years 2013-19. AAC also signs a minor contract with CBS for basketball. In May of 2019, AAC and ESPN announce new 12 yr television agreement reportedly worth $1B ($83M per year).