Some details about the Independence deal with ESPN?

"Our sources are telling us that BYU and ESPN have agreed upon a contract that would pay BYU $4 million per year for the rights to air Cougar football games.



ESPN would have the rights to broadcast four home BYU games, with distributions rights to the other home games remaining with the University... ESPN.com is reporting that BYU will play four WAC schools each year in football as part of the deal."

http://deepshadesofblue.com/byu-declaring-its-independence/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So BYU just quadrupled their TV money and exposure (espn gets what they want, BYU happily takes what's left)... while grabbing more freedom than they've ever had...



ESPN starts to sell and hype BYU again and has even more reason to leave the rest of the MWC in obscurity.



ESPN even gets BYU basketball on the cheap with the WAC affiliation. It's a major win.

craigoscarson wrote:
So BYU just quadrupled their TV money and exposure (espn gets what they want, BYU happily takes what's left)... while grabbing more freedom than they've ever had...

Even more. BYU has rebroadcast rights to their games, which they air on their own network, and 2 or 3 additional home games to air. All that spells more moolah. And hopefully ESPN can help broker some quality home and home games against Big Ten, ACC, and SEC teams. Screw the Pac. Don't ever want to see BYU play another Pac-zip team again! (including the :utard: )

I thought ESPN would want more than 4 home games and give more than $4 million per, but it is still better than what the MTN offers for all BYU sports combined for a year. Gives BYU leeway to develop its own network now, too. I am sure BYU will still give it out for free to Dish, DirectTV, etc, just sell ad time during games to make added revenue. Similar to the old Blue and White Network, only now in free HD worldwide. I was hoping the deal would guarantee $8M or so, but still a huge improvement.

This excites me! Very much so... But I'm not assuming anything until I see this confirmed from BYU themselves, and that wanker Jay Drew don't count.



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Not to be too greedy, but does the deal say anything about not playing on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, or are we just stuck with that?

Cougarfan87 wrote:
Not to be too greedy, but does the deal say anything about not playing on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, or are we just stuck with that?

THIS is an excellent question.

I know this is $2.5M more than what they are getting from the MTN every year but I thought it would somehow be more or they would be able to find other revenue streams from Internet. How much are the utes getting from their deal PAC O Crap-- $12M??



(BTW, I was wondering what happened to everyone on Cougarblue (Ghost town and troll ridden) and now I found everyone. It's great to be back with the group and enjoying the great insight and conversation. DH should have fixed the problems before they lost all their users.)

It's $2.5 mil more than the MTN gave us for all sports for only 4 home football games. This leaves TONS of room for more revenue.

This blog may help explain more of the financial advantages of independence:



http://frankthetank.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/byu-independence-day-and-how-it-helps-the-bcs-conferences/



If BYU were to get a Notre Dame type automatic bid into the BCS (and automatic payout), that would net BYU an additional $4-5 million per year. (in addition to the ESPN deal, advertising from BYU Sports TV, Bowl game payouts, etc., etc.)

I assume 1 game will be the USU game on a Friday night every year--pre-conference. I would not be surprised to see 1 other Thursday game. No way any other day than that.

Ad revenue for the other home games not picked up; on-line distribution ads......yes, its coming, regardless of retracted reports.

I dont think it is going to be close to 10-12mil, so some of you may have to drop the competitive thing and give this time. I would guess that bball will generate another 1 mil at least and between all these sources, less a bowl game we will be looking at 4 mil + a conservative 2 mil = 6-7 mil. I 'll take that anyday. AND, we look alot more attractive to BIG 12 in the future.

AND the national exposure just multipied by 100% from the soon to be lay-waisted MTN.

Here's why the ESPN deal makes sense from the ESPN side:



No production costs. BYU has the ability to set up cameras and run the broadcast truck. So basically all ESPN would have to do is send the announcers. They'd have very little overhead to produce the game. All they'd have to do is sell advertising.

IndiCoug wrote:
I know this is $2.5M more than what they are getting from the MTN every year but I thought it would somehow be more or they would be able to find other revenue streams from Internet. How much are the utes getting from their deal PAC O Crap-- $12M??



(BTW, I was wondering what happened to everyone on Cougarblue (Ghost town and troll ridden) and now I found everyone. It's great to be back with the group and enjoying the great insight and conversation. DH should have fixed the problems before they lost all their users.)

We quadruple our TV revenue and then some... ESPN pays for 1/3 of our schedule and brokers OOC games including guarantees with the WAC... BYU (and to an extent, our opponents) calls the shots on the rest.



BYU not only beefs up their broadcasting (there are limitless amounts of opportunities for priceless cross promotion) but they get to promote ALL of their sports to nearly 100 million homes that could potentially carry BYUTV, and rebroadcast all BYU events. The advertising gets a major BYU specific bump, the recruiting gets a major BYU specific bump, and we dont' have to share a thing with Utah and the awful TV deal that the pac-10 has right now. Our network is pro-BYU...gung-ho BYU.



They handpick their tv guys, they handpick their sales guys, and they can actually use the University (more than they do now) to make it a broadcasting school of extreme repute.



The financial implications of these things are mind boggling. The cross promotion is amazing.



I wish I could sit down with my brother for a few hours and just figure it all out. (he graduated from Cornell Law and worked for Wilson-Sonsini; I can only imagine what's going through his head right now as to the financial implications)



While we probably (conservatively) only quadruple our actual revenue; the value its brings us in exposure, cross-promotion, leverage (and still have freedom to do it our way) makes this worth much more than the numbers indicate.



Keep in mind, that BYU has its share of multimillion dollar (and billion dollar) boosters that IF they're on board with this make up more than what Utah seemingly gains by pac 10 membership.



What Utah has that we won't is security.



What BYU has that Utah won't is freedom. (and of course class, good fans, a national championship, a Heisman, a national following, a Doak Walker, a Lombardi award, an Outland trophy, a Sammy Baugh trophy, a Davey Obrien.... Bronco.... Heaps....etc. etc. etc.)

IndiCoug wrote:
I know this is $2.5M more than what they are getting from the MTN every year but I thought it would somehow be more or they would be able to find other revenue streams from Internet. How much are the utes getting from their deal PAC O Crap-- $12M??



(BTW, I was wondering what happened to everyone on Cougarblue (Ghost town and troll ridden) and now I found everyone. It's great to be back with the group and enjoying the great insight and conversation. DH should have fixed the problems before they lost all their users.)

utes are getting like 18 million probably once full members. to be deteremined. this is a lot of risk to take on for an extra 2.5 million.

jonnylingo wrote:

I know this is $2.5M more than what they are getting from the MTN every year but I thought it would somehow be more or they would be able to find other revenue streams from Internet. How much are the utes getting from their deal PAC O Crap-- $12M??



(BTW, I was wondering what happened to everyone on Cougarblue (Ghost town and troll ridden) and now I found everyone. It's great to be back with the group and enjoying the great insight and conversation. DH should have fixed the problems before they lost all their users.)

utes are getting like 18 million probably once full members. to be deteremined. this is a lot of risk to take on for an extra 2.5 million.

What happens if BYU stays with the MWC now that Fresno and potentially Nevada join? What if BYU leverages all of this against the MWC for more freedom, $, etc.



I don't think BYU has hurt themselves in the slightest, we can still leverage this situation like Texas did if we dont' like the view.

With the Bowls under contract with different confrences unless we got a BCS game we may be picking up the slop of the confrences that don't have enough qualifying bowl teams. Not sure that's a good solution unless someone has heard something else about bowls.

craigoscarson wrote:



What BYU has that Utah won't is freedom. (and of course class, good fans, a national championship, a Heisman, a national following, a Doak Walker, a Lombardi award, an Outland trophy, a Sammy Baugh trophy, a Davey Obrien.... Bronco.... Heaps....etc. etc. etc.)

Bingo! :P



So we are looking at something more along the lines of:

ESPN 4 Home Games = $4M

BYU 2 Home Games = $1M

Extra home game every other year = $1M

Take Home from Bowl Game = $1.5 to 3M a year

BCS Deal (Political Byoff) = $1M

$6M to $10Million a year

That's more along the lines of what I was thinking when I heard this might happen. Wait and See. If the numbers are close I don't even know if the Fresno/Nevada to MWC news would affect the outcome.

The outcome woudl be affected if BYU doesn't like what's left of the WAC and they can leverage the MWC for some concessions.



The day has been quite the rollercoaster; and I made the assumption that Holmoe and ESPN had the WAC under their thumb. Doesn't look that way now. At least it's not Sept. 2.

kitic77 wrote:
Here's why the ESPN deal makes sense from the ESPN side:



No production costs. BYU has the ability to set up cameras and run the broadcast truck. So basically all ESPN would have to do is send the announcers. They'd have very little overhead to produce the game. All they'd have to do is sell advertising.

This is exactly why ESPN loved BYU in the past and why they are jumping at the opportunity now. This is also why they let BYU have the rebroadcast rights to their games, ESPN makes money and all they have to do is send their broadcast team.