SBJ College: Expansion paying dividends for Big Ten Network

The Big Ten is growing its membership -- and the dollars are following.

While the conference’s expansion era kicks off this fall, Big Ten Network has seen major growth in corporate sponsorship since bringing those efforts in-house two years ago (those sales were previously outsourced to a third party).

BTN President Francois McGillicuddy estimates the team now embedded within the league office was doing roughly $7 million in sales at that time. That's increased to around $15 million in the first year of in-house work , while there’s expected to be another significant increase this year.

“We are going to, very quickly here, surpass $20 million,” McGillicuddy said.

Those efforts got an assist from the Big Ten seeing long-standing partners return at varying levels -- such as Dr Pepper, State Farm and Discover -- while other deals, such as sponsorship pacts with DirecTV and TIAA, have brought new businesses into the fold.

“Closer coordination with the conference than ever before [has been a catalyst],” McGillicuddy continued. “We've been able to combine that corporate sponsorship sales effort with our media sales effort, both for the Big Ten Network and more broadly. The combination of those two things [has paid off].”

BTN content offerings also expanding amid conference additions

Corporate sponsorship isn't the only thing at BTN experiencing growth.

“The big concept is that the Big Ten is getting bigger,” McGillicuddy said. “Our tagline for a number of years for the Big Ten Network has been ‘This is big.’ We're just growing off of that.”

With Washington, Oregon, USC and UCLA prepping for their first season in the Big Ten, BTN is beefing up its live coverage efforts, which includes a new West Coast prime-time window to the football slate.

The network will broadcast one-third of all Big Ten games this year, including a guaranteed two contests from each school, one of which must be a conference game. BTN will also feature 16 of the league’s 18 programs over the first three weeks of the season.

As part of that scheduling in football and beyond, McGillicuddy noted the network is expected to jump from 550 events on linear a year ago to more than 600 this year. Streaming, too, will see an increase from 1,700 events to 2,300.

The network is also set to unveil a new studio named after former commissioner Jim Delany.

“We’re affectionately calling it ‘Studio D,’” McGillicuddy said.

Honey Baked Ham is bringing the goods this tailgate season.

The company is set to revamp its “ Gameday is a HoneyBaked Day ” campaign, along with re-upping its partnership with ESPN reporter Laura Rutledge. The campaign will include TV advertising, digital video, social advertising, radio and podcast advertising, a tailgate tour activation and local store activations. An official announcement is expected Wednesday.

“Fans are going to get to try a lot of these offerings in-person,” Rutledge said. “They're going to be tasting the sliders in real time as they're getting ready for what will be some of the best college football that we've seen in quite some time.”

Honey Baked Ham’s new game-day menu will include the Take & Bake Pulled Pork Cuban Sliders and the Gameday Box, so fans can build a to go-style box for tailgating.

Rutledge will also be featured in Honey Baked Ham’s social media content, along with videos she creates throughout the season related to the campaign.

“One of the coolest things about this partnership -- and probably something that I've never really shared before -- is the fact that these are not preplanned ideas for what you'll see on social media,” Rutledge said. “All the really cool stuff that's happening is real time for us. That's a unique part of this partnership.”

EA Sports College Football 25 released just over a month ago, and after 11 years without a video game for the sport, all signs have been positive.

My colleague Austin Karp spoke to EA Sports President Cam Weber, who said the response from fans has been “incredible” and “far beyond our expectations.” Weber: “The thing that's really impressed me has been just the way the community has embraced the game.”

The rollout so far also has gone as smooth as can be expected. “So much could have gone wrong,” said Weber. “The approach, how much we were paying them, the approach to reaching them, the tier of programs, the athletes we chose -- even the scrutiny of what should the cover look like for a college football game ... all of these things could have gone poorly, and they all went so well.”

Weber noted EA Sports had to work with 134 FBS schools to create the game -- and that doesn’t include the 11,000 individual NIL deals that had to be struck. “We've got college football players across the country in training camps, just playing the game together every day and then promoting the game and talking about it on their social channels, because they're so excited about the game and they love it so much,” said Weber.

The relaunch also has been a boon for console manufacturers. “I've also had numerous calls from senior executives at Sony and Microsoft saying, ‘Cam, we're seeing an uptick of people buying consoles, lapsed gamers that haven't actually migrated to these newer generations of consoles that are actually making the decision to buy a console because they're so excited to come back and play college football.’”

• Old Dominion Freight Line is adding to its roster just in time for the fall with multiyear sponsorships with UConn, Missouri, Purdue and Marquette. With the four new additions, Old Dominion Freight now has partnerships with 44 schools nationwide, along with an ongoing sponsorship of ESPN's "College GameDay."

• Legends named Brooke Smoley as VP/Legends College, and she’ll focus on guiding the division as it serves the company’s college clients on strategies for generating revenue, analytics, ticketing, premium seating and fundraising. Smoley joins from UCF, where she was the senior associate AD/ticketing, strategy and analytics.

• In this week's magazine, SBJ's Bill King profiles Steve Bornstein as part of our Champions: Pioneers & Innovators Class of 2024. Bornstein's strategy helped grow ESPN into a juggernaut for college sports, which includes a key decision to give ESPN2 a spotlight during its 1993 debut by putting then-No. 1 Duke vs. No. 2 North Carolina on "The Deuce," a move that he said brought at least six irate calls from the state’s governor.

• NBC Sports’ Nicole Auerbach is a guest on this week’s SBJ Sports Media podcast, which drops Wednesday. Auerbach talks about one big thing she would change if she was the czar of college football: “First you have to pull it out and have its own entity, its own rules, its own governance structure so that you're not making decisions that affect everything else on these campuses. ... It would simplify a lot in terms of revenue and media rights deals, because you could sell it as a full package, which is what the NFL does.”