It’s been nine years since I started my freshman year at Indiana. I spent the last two falls of my undergrad years covering the football team. That left only a few Saturdays I could bop around the tailgates and indulge in a few 12 oz curls (if memory serves, I’ve only been to one or two games as a fan since my sophomore year of college).
Welp, after almost a decade away, I’m heading back to Bloomington this weekend for a college buddy’s bachelor party. The Hoosiers are 7-0, ranked ahead of Alabama in the latest AP Poll, and IU is welcoming ESPN's "College GameDay" to town on a Saturday for the first time ever.
Safe to say Hoosier Nation is buzzing for Curt Cignetti’s squad -- and I can’t wait to see it in action.
What’s next for college basketball?
College basketball is changing dramatically, thanks in large part to football-related conference realignment.
I delve deep into the ongoing discussions around “undervalued” basketball media rights in this week’s magazine, along with a wide-ranging interview with NCAA VP/Women’s Basketball Lynn Holzman.
The big takeaways: Women’s basketball continues to be a massive growth property , and men’s basketball is in a complicated orbit due, in large part, to football-centric changes to college sports.
“The current Big East is a product of football-basketball tension,” Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman said. “The tension between the football-playing schools and the basketball-only schools led to the breakup of the old Big East 15 years ago. We're here today because of that tension, and the memories of that are sort of seared into the schools in my league. So, they're watching closely what's going on.” Ackerman also talks to my colleague Austin Karp on this week's episode of the SBJ Sports Media Podcast dropping Thursday.
Tension between football and men’s basketball aside, the women’s game continues to be a boon for networks and the NCAA. Take the NCAA’s latest media rights deal as proof. College sports’ governing body considered creating a separate package for the women’s basketball tournament, but instead rolled it up into a joint deal that includes a slew of Olympic sports, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament’s international rights and more worth $115 annually -- around $65 million of which comes from the value of women’s basketball.
“Over the last several years in particular, we’ve seen tremendous growth in women’s basketball [and] women’s sports overall,” Holzman said. “... There’s key metrics that you see, those indicators that we were already starting to see the growth prior to the pandemic. Since then, there were a few inflection points that really, with additional resource investment, public knowledge, great players and coaches and performances, it’s brought numerous other individuals to our game that are staying -- and that’s whether attending or watching.”
Football, for better or worse, is going to continue driving the bus. Basketball may be along for the ride, but the sport remains integral moving forward.
“I’m not going to say anything stupid and say the value of college basketball from a media perspective is the same as college football,” quipped Karen Brodkin, EVP of Endeavor and co-head of WME Sports. “... But I do think that delta is getting tighter.”
How Virginia Tech landed Metallica concert at Lane Stadium
Virginia Tech is getting metal -- sort of.
The school is set to host a Metallica concert on May 7 in a confluence of Virginia Tech football’s famed usage of “Enter Sandman” on fall Saturdays and the preeminent heavy metal group that made the tune famous.
“There’s unique circumstances everywhere,” said Brad Wurthman, Virginia Tech executive associate AD/external affairs and advancement. “But this is a unique band, in a unique venue, with a unique history that is tied to this.”
The Virginia Tech x Metallica collab has been in the works for the better part of two years. First conceived in the athletic department as an appearance by the band to play “Enter Sandman” live before a football game, that idea pivoted to a co-branded merchandise line between the group and school.
Working varying back channels to reach Metallica’s representation, both parties agreed a concert at Lane Stadium was the way to go.
“You put Metallica in other college [properties], and I'm sure they'll do an amazing job. It just doesn't have the folklore aspect that they have here in Blacksburg,” Wurthman said. “... This is the 25th year that we've played ‘Enter Sandman’ as the Hokies take the field. ... This has been a pipe dream for so many people for so long, and we did our homework. We found some people who had some contacts, and we called and worked through the process of ... ‘How do we just get you to come to Blacksburg for a game and play ‘Sandman?’ And we worked really hard on trying to make that possible.”
Virginia Tech is the latest in a slew of schools that have been working to better monetize their football stadiums via the concert route. Tennessee held a Morgan Wallen show earlier this fall at Neyland Stadium, while George Strait’s show at Kyle Field was a boon for Texas A&M.
Paciolan , the third-party ticketing solution company that’s under Learfield’s banner, has seen the number of live events like concerts jump from around three coming out of COVID to 44 last year. The stadium shows, Paciolan President Deana Barnes said, are also netting well into the seven figures in gross revenue.
“Hockey stick,” Barnes said of how much growth Paciolan has seen. “... We fully expect that to continue to grow. The conversations are daily right now.”
Virginia Tech has been no exception to the profitability of the concert approach. The ticket allotment for the show sold out in a week. Its Metallica-branded apparel line, released almost a month before the concert was announced, was also in limited supply.
The concert itself, too, will have its share of quirks, like a student section in the north end zone -- an idea the band’s representation and the athletic department both wanted to pitch unbeknownst to either side.
Actual revenues from the concert are still far from being calculated, but those inside athletics figure to be rolling in green when the final guitar chord rips through the Blacksburg night.
“This is one of those like, I hate to use the term ‘pipe dream’ as some hyperbole, but it really is a like, ‘This can't actually happen, right?’” Wurthman quipped. “And then it does, and it's been a very amazing process to get to be a small part of.”
Speed reads
- The Pac-12 tapped Octagon to handle its media rights, per John Canzano. Doug Perlman's Sports Media Advisors previously managed the conference's media rights.
- Learfield and Boise State (which will join the Pac-12 in 2026) agreed to an 11-year extension to their existing multimedia rights and revenue generation partnership. The new deal includes support from Learfield and its local affiliate, Bronco Sports Properties, toward the school's North End Zone Project at Albertsons Stadium.
- Legends will lead sales, strategy and marketing around premium and general seating associated with Charlotte's planned renovations for Jerry Richardson Stadium in a multiyear agreement.
- The most recent Sports Media Podcast features Fox Sports' Mike Mulvihill, who talks with SBJ's Austin Karp about the success of college football on Friday nights: “The games we've done so far have averaged 3 million viewers, which means they're averaging less than what CBS and NBC average on Saturday afternoons and Saturday night, but not that much less. They're relatively competitive. These are games that if they were not on Fox Friday night, would probably be on FS1 on a Saturday afternoon, and they would just get a little bit lost.”
- Saturday’s titanic Georgia-Texas tilt drew 13.2 viewers to ABC, making it the most watched college football game of Week 8 -- and of the season, notes SBJ's Austin Karp.