BCS Likely Heading to Cable in 2011
Fox Sports declines to match offer from ESPN to televise Bowl Championship Series games.
By Alex Weprin and John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 11/17/2008 11:27:00 AM
Related:British Open Moving To Cable
Fox Sports has declined to match an offer from ESPN to televise Bowl Championship Series games, beginning in 2011. That decision means that BCS games likely will be moving to cable for the first time, and may no longer be available on free-to-air broadcast television.
Fox currently owns the rights to the Orange, Fiesta, Sugar and BCS National Championship games, while ABC has a separate deal for the Rose Bowl. ABC is a sister network to ESPN, both owned by the Walt Disney Company.
“Even with today’s vast economic uncertainties, Fox Sports made a very competitive bid to keep broadcasting BCS games free to every home in America, one that included a substantial rights fee increase, and certainly as much as any over-the-air network could responsibly risk,” said Fox Sports in a statement. “Unfortunately, the University presidents and BCS commissioners were not satisfied and they’ve decided to take their jewel events to pay television. We wish everyone well.”
ESPN, for its part said “We are not commenting about a potential BCS agreement. However, we remind everyone that ESPN is distributed on expanded basic, a product enjoyed by 98 million homes that offers the best entertainment buy in America and that already carries many championship caliber sports events.”
Sports siphoning was a big issue in Washington a decade or so ago. The FCC considers sports must-have programming for which there is no easy substitution. Meanwhile, legislators have made noise about NFL Network and college football games, and hometown Major League Baseball games their constituents couldn't receive due to rights disagreements and/or rights deals. So, would there be a Washington backlash if the college football championship moved to cable?
Neal Pilson, currently a consultant and formerly head of CBS sports, says probably not.
"I don't think so," he says. "I think Washington has other problems to deal with.”
Besides, he says, "ESPN is in 90 million homes out of a total of about 112 million, and there just doesn't seem to be much reaction now." The one-time broadcast staple of Monday Night Football, for example, moved to cable several years back with nary a discouraging word from inside the Beltway.
"I don't see the Super Bowl any time soon," Pilson says, or the World Series or NCAA basketball tournament, which is on CBS for the next four to five years. But he sees other "major" events possibly moving to cable.
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BCS, while you may pat yourselves on the back for squeezing out more money from the host network, simultaneously kick yourselves in the rear for eroding your own fan base. You sold out millions of die-hard, blue-collar fans with traditions of hosting game-watching parties in their homes. For those who choose not to afford expanded cable, they will have to move their families and friends to some sports bar to see the major bowl games. The glory and aura of college football and its image of "Everyman's sport" just took a big hit.
B. Ballard - 11/18/2008 2:53:00 PM EST -
Congratulations to ESPN in acquiring the rights fee to begin broadcasting all BCS Games with the exception of the Rose Bowl beginning in 2011. Since ESPN is THE place for College Football and Basketball, this only makes sense to begin broadcasting the Bowl Games. Getting this away from Ruppert Murdoch''s right-wing FOX Network only helps ESPN continue it''s long tradition of broadcasting quality sports programming both from a talent and production standpoint. It''s time to move forward looking to the future and FOX Sports never had any business televising College football''s BCS Games. Although Thom Brenamann is one of the top play-by-play announcers, his "niche" is baseball just as Marv Albert''s is the NBA. Mr. Albert has no business broadcasting NFL Monday Night Football on Westwood One. He doesn''t add anything to play-by-play and seems bored on MNF. I would recommend Wayne Larivee as Albert''s successor immediately. Mr. Larivee brings a 20 plus year resume of doing NFL play-by-play, first with Kansas City, then as the longtime announcer for the Chicago Bears, and currrently in his 10th season of broadcasting the Green Bay Packers on WTMJ in Milwaukee as the flagship network for Packer games. When Mr. Larivee has subbed for the "over the hill" tired broadcast style of Marv Albert, color analyst Boomer Easison seems much more energized with Wayne''s enthusiasm he brings to his broadcasts. Again, congratulations to ESPN and here''s hoping for many successful years of broadcasting BCS Games.
Jeff Ostach - 11/18/2008 2:40:00 PM EST -
The thing to remember is moving the games to ESPN will result in ESPN licesning fee rsing even more. And of course, that cost is passed on to the customers. Many of whom are fed up with the rapidly increasing cost of cable, most of which is caused by ESPN and the RSNs.
Iowa Media - 11/17/2008 7:09:00 PM EST
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