Fox Sports pulled its bid to air the BCS football games, taking a $100 million per year offer off the table. This move leaves ESPN as the likely only bidder, with an offer in the neighborhood of $125 million per year. Fox’s current deal expires after the 2009 season.

The negotiations are especially newsworthy because of the rumor that ESPN is planning on putting all of the BCS games on cable television, as opposed to the current system which has all five BCS games on over-the-air networks. Fox currently airs four games, while ABC airs the Rose Bowl.

ESPN is currently available in 98 million homes. Nearly 22 million homes don’t have cable or satellite television and rely on over-the-air signals.

ESPN’s likely move of the games to cable is due to the fact that ESPN can shamelessly cross-promote the games on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews, ESPN Classic, ESPNU, ESPN.com, ESPN Radio, ESPN the Coloring Book, ESPN 360, ESPN the Magazine, ESPN Deportes and any other Disney owned entity. This, of course, means that ESPN can package the advertising they plan to make, as well as offer more exposure to the sponsors, theoretically resulting in more money.

In the business that is college football, unfortunately money is the bottom line. If ESPN thinks it can make back its $125 million per year in their own way, they will pay for the chance to do so. There is no interest in what the fans want, or how college football is best able to air its product.

This also means that there is a chance that Mike Patrick is in the booth for a BCS game. This is a scenario that no one wants. Mike Patrick is just simply not good at calling football games. There are only so many games that Brent Musberg and Kirk Herbstreit can call.

This is just another attempt by ESPN to be a part of the news, rather than just a reporter of the news. They will take the BCS and make it a part of their network. Mark my words, they will influence who plays in what games. They have too much power with their regular season contracts that they will be able to tell the Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl what matchups they’d prefer.

Add in the reality that we will likely never hear an announcer, reporter or host on ESPN even mention the possibility of a college football playoff again, and this is something that disappoints me.

None of this is good for college football, and unfortunately, no one cares about what is good for college football.

Share this story...

Discussion

No comments for “ESPN in BCS Driver’s Seat”

Post a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.