I know MiR is gonna yell at me, but I am curious to see what the TV revenue looks like for this conference. Obviously won't be as high as current B12, but will still probably be pretty decent. Will likely be a massive boost for the current AAC teams. $20m or so?
Why would I yell at you? I think the deal could be around $20 million per but that depends on how it gets packaged. First of all, ESPN will still definitely still be involved with the bidding process. They have to fill those programming hours and having the AAC without three of the four schools that get any eyeballs at all has to be frightening for them.
The good thing about not having OU and UT out of the equation is that they can get creative with when they play games and what platforms they play them on. I don't think they're going to be exclusive with a streaming service, they realize that there are still large swaths of the conference footprint that doesn't have high speed internet access. I could see a streaming service get the network with third tier rights, similar to what we have with ESPN+ right now.
I've heard that CBS wants to stay in college football and the timing of their SEC deal expiring and our new deal starting works well for us.
I think $18 million is the floor, but that doesn't have anything to do with the conference, that's if something unforseen happens and sports rights fees bottom out, but we'll know if that happens before our bid process starts. I think the ceiling is $28 million. If I were a betting man I'd say we end up with a very long term deal, like the ACC has but it will be with Fox or CBS and the third tier rights/conference channel will go to ESPN+, Hulu, or Amazon. If it works out like this, we'll get the ceiling, possibly more. If we get more, like $30 million, people will dance in the streets, in 2024, but by 2039, when the deal is over, it will be LOLable.
