Everyone seems to have Super Leagues on their minds these days.
Ideas circulated by TurnkeyZRG Chairman Len Perna’s College Sports Tomorrow group and another pitch being pieced together by Smash Capital had plenty in college football talking over the last few weeks.
On paper, the ideas make plenty of sense. The Power Four continues to create a divide between itself and the Group of Five -- and that doesn’t seem to be changing any time soon. A “break off” of some kind would make the most sense along Power Four lines (albeit there’s always the belief the Big Ten and SEC might secede and form their own “super league”).
What I keep coming back to is why do college sports need an outside investor for this? In so many words, what’s stopping the biggest leagues from taking the bones of these two pitches and piecing together their own proposal, sans private money, when their existing TV deals expire around 2031.
Just a little food for thought. ...
Big East seeking supplementary media package for men’s, women’s basketball
The Big East is still testing the media rights market.
After securing a six-year deal with Fox Sports, NBC Sports and TNT Sports for its main media rights package earlier this year, the conference is hunting a supplemental package, Commissioner Val Ackerman told SBJ.
The additional package would include regular season contests of around 30 men’s basketball games (primarily early-season matchups), 75 women’s basketball games and select Olympic sports events not otherwise included in the primary package.
“These [media rights] deals are the lifeblood of any sports league, whether it's pro or college,” Ackerman said. “They afford exposure, national exposure, revenue -- which is critically important to operations -- and they afford credibility.”
The Big East’s main TV package is reportedly worth around $75 million to $80 million annually -- good for a per-school distribution of $6 million to $8 million between media rights and other payouts.
The conference is also entering the final year of a three-year extension with FloSports . That deal, announced in August 2022, includes Olympic sports, women’s basketball coverage and original content such as the weekly men’s and women’s basketball feature shows “Shootaround” and “Fast Break.”
Supplemental packages have been en vogue in college sports of late. The Mountain West Conference recently inked a deal with TNT Sports for 14 league games that are airing on truTV and Max this fall (none have gotten above 100,000 viewers to date).
Indiana capitalizing off hot start to football season
These are strange times in Bloomington.
In a week in which Hoosiers basketball earned a No. 17 ranking in the AP Preseason poll, energy in town is swirling around, of all things, football.
“Our football fans have been as loyal as they come,” Indiana AD Scott Dolson said. “And it's great when we've had the early success. We've had to see them rewarded.”
As I wrote this summer , IU has made massive investments in football in recent years. This includes significant upgrades to Memorial Stadium, added funding for support staff and a major hire in coach Curt Cignetti.
These investments are paying off -- and quickly. The Hoosiers reached 5-0 for the first time since the LBJ administration with a win over Maryland and followed it with a throttling of Northwestern on the road. A looming matchup with 5-1 Nebraska is on the docket this weekend, and Fox’s “Big Noon Kickoff” will be in town to catch the action.
“We saw a decent increase [in ticket sales after Cignetti’s hiring],” Dolson said. “But then it's just grown every week as the team has performed and as people kind of see what we're all about.”
Indiana already announced sellouts for this week's contest against Nebraska and the Nov. 9 matchup with Michigan. That a Big Ten school sold out its football stadium isn’t usually worth writing about. Hell, Nebraska has done so for 401 games in a row over the course of 62 years. But Indiana is a different animal.
Per Peegs.com (a publication that covers Indiana athletics), IU had only sold out eight football games this century (!!) before this season, four of which had come since 2017. Dolson noted IU Sports Properties, the school's local Learfield division, has also seen an increase in activity and interest from a sponsorship standpoint -- such as adding Abbott Labs, AAA Hoosier Motor Club, Finney Hospitality Group (an Indiana-based restaurant group) and Viaggio Pontoons as new partners this year.
“We expect a few more sellouts the remainder of the season,” Dolson said. “... It's great to announce a sellout, but we're trying to set that bar. That's what we want. The more [we win], our expectation moving forward is that we want those crowds to continue to be strong.”
Dragon Seats, SEC set to announce partnership
Dragon Seats is set to unveil a multiyear lease with the SEC to provide its Dragon ShadER system across all 16 schools’ home and visiting sidelines, sources told SBJ. An official announcement is expected Wednesday.
The Dragon ShadER is an adjustable shade and weather protection system designed and manufactured in partnership with Kinematic and specifically created to protect the new sideline tablets approved for NCAA use this year. The company debuted the Dragon ShadER at Alabama’s spring football game in April, while its climate-controlled benches saw use at Alabama, Georgia, Texas and Oklahoma, among other clients.
The partnership with the SEC marks the second prominent league-wide agreement for Dragon Seats, which inked a deal with the Big Ten that makes it the exclusive climate-controlled bench provider for visiting team sidelines this season.
Sideline seating provided by the company has also become an activation tool for varying schools as athletic departments continue to seek incremental revenue due, in part, to the looming prospect of revenue sharing via a settlement in the House, Hubbard and Carter antitrust cases. Penn State (Muscle Milk), Colorado (Boost Mobile) and Texas (Gatorade) are among those schools that have sold sponsorship space to advertisers on the benches. Exact details of those deals have remained confidential, but sources suggest those agreements are worth well into six figures annually.
Speed reads
- Oregon’s thrilling win over Ohio State on Saturday night was easily the most-watched college football game in Week 7 at 10.4 million viewers, notes SBJ’s Austin Karp. The Red River Rivalry was No. 2, followed by Alabama’s close win over South Carolina.
- Patrick Mahomes has a special relationship with Texas Tech, one that runs deeper than with most players after they turn pro -- and plays a key role in his 10-year deal with Adidas, as I detail in this week's magazine.
- WMT Digital has spent most of this year boosting its products and personnel, acquiring AI ticketing platform Event Dynamic and releasing a new way to better see client data with QuantOS, reports SBJ's Ethan Joyce. WMT boasts a college client roster that includes Notre Dame, Clemson and LSU among its approximately 100 brands.
- ESPN’s “College GameDay” remains on-pace for its best season ever after seven weeks following its visit to Eugene ahead of the Ohio State-Oregon game on Saturday.