via press release:
ESPN and BYU Reach Agreement for Football Rights Beginning in 2011
ESPN, Inc. and Brigham Young University (BYU) have reached an eight-year agreement for exclusive rights to BYU home football games across multiple ESPN platforms for the 2011 season through the conclusion of play in 2018. ESPN has an option to extend the agreement through 2019.
“BYU is nationally recognized as an outstanding university and for the history and tradition of its premier athletic programs,” said Burke Magnus, ESPN senior vice president, college sports programming. “Once BYU decided to chart an independent course for football, we both recognized it is a good opportunity to build and grow our strong 30- year relationship. With this agreement, college football fans around the country will see the quality and pageantry of BYU as well as the passion and enthusiasm of its supporters.”
“ESPN’s long history of televising some of the great games in Cougar football history was one of the reasons we reached out to them when we began this process,” said BYU President Cecil O. Samuelson. “We’re thrilled to return to an official relationship with the family of networks that has done so much for us over the years, and which has a well deserved reputation for high-quality productions. We’re also grateful to ESPN for accommodating our in-house broadcasting arm, BYU Broadcasting.”
ESPN will receive first selection rights to all BYU home games and any neutral site matchup where BYU is the designated home team. Details include:
- An annual minimum of three games on ESPN, ESPN on ABC or ESPN2, including telecasts on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
- An annual minimum of one game on ESPNU.
- ESPN3.com, ESPN Mobile TV and ESPN GamePlan will be able to simulcast any ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN on ABC telecast.
- BYU content will also be available on ESPN Classic, ESPN.com and ESPN Mobile Properties.
Any games not selected by ESPN will be available on BYU Broadcasting.
BYU, the cable Notre Dame!
i recognize BYU’s solid football tradition with a bunch of NFL alum and recent Top20 finishes, but an exclusive deal surprised me. arguably. BYU may be stronger than Notre Dame’s at this point, but lacks that mystique
Perhaps I should have said Notre Dame-lite. Conventional wisdom is that BYU has a national fan base, although far, far smaller, than Notre Dame. Looks like ESPN was willing to put that to the test.
Likely the money involved is very small compared to the Notre Dame/NBC deal.
It’s not really much of a risk for ESPN. As an independent, BYU will be able to schedule 3-5 marquee games per year, and then the rest they’ll have to fill in with lesser-quality opponents. ESPN will be able to cherry-pick the marquee matchups which any network would be thrilled to broadcast. For example, BYU has Texas, Oregon State, Boise State and Notre Dame on its schedule in upcoming seasons, plus the annual matchup against Utah. Then the rest of the schedule will be against weak teams and those games will be relegated to BYUtv. Pretty much a no-brainer for ESPN.
1.2 million per home game according to the utah radio market
According to Utah radio it’s between $1mil and $1,5 million depending on the opponent. By comparison ND contract pays them roughly $1.6 mil per game (granted there are 9 home games a year for ND). The difference is BYU will hold all rebroadcast rights for all home games. They will be rebroadcast on BYUTV immediately following the game. As well BYU holds broadcast rights internationally.
According to Utah radio it’s between $1mil and $1,5 million depending on the opponent. By comparison ND contract pays them roughly $1.6 mil per game (granted there are 9 home games a year for ND). The difference is BYU will hold all rebroadcast rights for all home games. They will be rebroadcast on BYUTV immediately following the game. As well BYU holds broadcast rights internationally.