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CBS pulls out of SEC deal; likely headed to ESPN in 2023

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TexasMan

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SEC Football Leaving CBS After 2023, Likely For ESPN/ABC

By John Ourand

Friday, December 20, 2019

CBS will walk away from the SEC when its contract ends after the 2023 football season, and all indications are that the package will move to ESPN/ABC. CBS decided to exit the negotiations for college football's most-watched TV package after making an aggressive bid in the neighborhood of $300 million per season -- a massive increase from the $55 million it currently pays annually. CBS Sports execs decided that it made more sense to invest the money they would have paid the SEC into other sports. When contacted this afternoon by SBJ, CBS Sports PR emailed the following statement: “We made a strong and responsible bid. While we‘ve had success with the SEC on CBS, we are instead choosing to aggressively focus on other important strategic priorities moving forward.”

Multiple sources said ESPN/ABC is in the final stages of negotiating a deal that is expected to pay more than six times the $55 million per year fee that CBS currently pays, sources said. Fox Sports execs still are planning to make an official bid presentation at SEC HQ in Birmingham next month. But sources say ESPN’s negotiations are in the final stages. ESPN and Fox Sports would not comment.

CBS plans to carry SEC football for the four seasons it has left on its contract, unless the conference or winning network is able to buy it out. CBS has carried SEC football since 1996 and network execs were interested in extending. When bidding went well over $300 million per season for 15-17 football games, including the conference championship game, CBS opted to bow out.

The decision to move away from CBS carries some risk for the SEC, especially considering that it has been college football’s most-viewed package for more than 10 years running. The conference will go from a network where it is the only college football conference to one where it will be one of many conferences. Insiders credit some of the SEC’s success on Saturday afternoons with being the sole focus of CBS’ Emmy-winning coverage.

The decision to walk away from the SEC does not suggest that CBS is tight-fisted. Since its merge with Viacom, CBS has dug into its pockets for the UEFA Champions League and has agreed on terms for an extension with the PGA Tour that will see a 60% increase in rights fees. CBS is expected to be aggressive in retaining its NFL Sunday afternoon package.

ESPN won the conference over with its argument that it can be more creative with scheduling when it controls all of the rights. With ESPN owning all of the SEC’s football rights, it’s possible that more than one game will be produced for broadcast TV; more top-tier games can be moved to primetime; and the conference can schedule more late afternoon games without having to worry about running into CBS’ exclusive window. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey has been concerned about all of the league’s rights being tied up with ABC/ESPN because of the leverage it would give the media company, sources said. It is not known if ESPN opened up its contract to operate SEC Network or its cable rights as part of these negotiations. Those contracts run through 2034.

 

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ButtFumble

ButtFumble 5158

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this makes no financial sense with over $20 million per game what they are reporting

it makes even less sense considering that CBS has said "pass" , there is not a chance in hell Fox bids that and no one else is going to step up to compete with that so ESPN is bidding against themselves

the new deals for the Big 10 average $440 a year and then if you include the last Big 10 Network payments of about $8 million per team (and probably declining because of recent cable company drops and new members) you still get to $552 a year and that is for 100% of everything the Big 10 has in ALL sports

so we are suppose to believe that ESPN is going to pay 59.8% of that the Big 10 gets for EVERYTHING to get 15 to 17 SEC SEC SEC football games and their CCG

and they are going to do that with CBS pulling out of negotiations completely and there being very little chance that Fox comes close to an offer like that and no other competitors

or to put it a different way they expect every cable subscriber in the USA to pay ESPN $.30 cents per month more just for those 18 games......which will probably be $.50 cents after cable MSO add ons and taxes

that is not a ton of money per person, but still that is a pretty ridiculous expectation for that amount of content

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Fudge Nuggets

Fudge Nuggets 19151

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21 minutes ago, ButtFumble said:

this makes no financial sense with over $20 million per game what they are reporting

it makes even less sense considering that CBS has said "pass" , there is not a chance in hell Fox bids that and no one else is going to step up to compete with that so ESPN is bidding against themselves

the new deals for the Big 10 average $440 a year and then if you include the last Big 10 Network payments of about $8 million per team (and probably declining because of recent cable company drops and new members) you still get to $552 a year and that is for 100% of everything the Big 10 has in ALL sports

so we are suppose to believe that ESPN is going to pay 59.8% of that the Big 10 gets for EVERYTHING to get 15 to 17 SEC SEC SEC football games and their CCG

and they are going to do that with CBS pulling out of negotiations completely and there being very little chance that Fox comes close to an offer like that and no other competitors

or to put it a different way they expect every cable subscriber in the USA to pay ESPN $.30 cents per month more just for those 18 games......which will probably be $.50 cents after cable MSO add ons and taxes

that is not a ton of money per person, but still that is a pretty ridiculous expectation for that amount of content

I'm not sure if you are aware, but it's been proven over the last few years that ESPN is run by a bunch of morons.

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torre

torre 1284

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12 hours ago, TexasMan said:

I can already see it now

The ABC 2:30 game every week will be the best/Bama SEC game and will be advertised like crazy. 10 game days will be at SEC locations. 

Stephen Ross, media writer at BC, agrees.    Ross always has good insight.

 

t’s not great news for any of the other Power 5 conferences.

CBS has said “No Mas” to the SEC and the broadcast rights to the conference are now expected to go to ABC/ESPN. CBS has been paying the SEC $55 million a year for less than 20 games a year.

Disney is said to be willing to pay up to $350 million a year for the 15-17 games a season.

Kudos to John Ourand of Sports Business Journal. He is the best in the business in covering this area. You can follow him at @Ourand_SBJ

There is some risk for the SEC - in terms of media exposure to their brand. The SEC has owned Saturday afternoons for the past decade. The SEC will no doubt be a ”First Among Equals” in terms of the other Power 5 conferences already in the ABC/ESPN fold, but with CBS they were the Golden Child who received millions in publicity throughout the entire CBS sports package -- especially in the NFL games.

On the other hand Disney had a great pitch as well. ESPN will have total control of the SEC media rights. That means more primetime games on ESPN. It means more broadcast games for the SEC on ABC on Saturday afternoons and evenings.

It also means less primetime games, for among others, the Big12.

Shit is about to get real.

 

https://www.barkingcarnival.com/2019/12/20/21032513/cbs-just-bowed-out-of-bidding-for-the-sec-guess-who-looks-to-be-the-winner

 

  

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aggie08

aggie08 21434

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I'm going to laugh pretty damn hard when Saban retires or goes to the NFL next year after growing tired of their ungrateful, dumbass fans rioting over not winning a National Championship for three whole years. After Alabama, who in the SEC is even close to a national brand that could provide decent return on investment? Ain't nobody west of Texas gives a shit about Georgia or LSU.

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ButtFumble

ButtFumble 5158

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3 hours ago, aggie08 said:

I'm going to laugh pretty damn hard when Saban retires or goes to the NFL next year after growing tired of their ungrateful, dumbass fans rioting over not winning a National Championship for three whole years. After Alabama, who in the SEC is even close to a national brand that could provide decent return on investment? Ain't nobody west of Texas gives a shit about Georgia or LSU.

 

at some point you have to wonder if ESPN does not at least make pretty good offers to the Big 10 in 2022-23, the PAC 12 in 2023-24, and the Big 12 in 2024-25 if those conferences will not start to shy away from the SEC SEC SEC in OOC games and leave ESPN and the SEC SEC SEC to play the ESPN owned properties of the ACC and AAC (both of which will be making a lot less or a hell of a lot less than the SEC SEC SEC for 12 to 15 years)

fortunately for the Big 12 (especially with their less than aggressive leadership) I think the picture will be pretty clear by 2024-25 if ESPN is going to try and be a 3 conference network (one of them being their golden child and the other 2 being on progressively lower tiers) and what other conferences reactions to that are or if ESPN is going to try and keep some semblance of "P5" even if there are some conferences making noticeably more

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89433

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5 minutes ago, ButtFumble said:

 

at some point you have to wonder if ESPN does not at least make pretty good offers to the Big 10 in 2022-23, the PAC 12 in 2023-24, and the Big 12 in 2024-25 if those conferences will not start to shy away from the SEC SEC SEC in OOC games and leave ESPN and the SEC SEC SEC to play the ESPN owned properties of the ACC and AAC (both of which will be making a lot less or a hell of a lot less than the SEC SEC SEC for 12 to 15 years)

fortunately for the Big 12 (especially with their less than aggressive leadership) I think the picture will be pretty clear by 2024-25 if ESPN is going to try and be a 3 conference network (one of them being their golden child and the other 2 being on progressively lower tiers) and what other conferences reactions to that are or if ESPN is going to try and keep some semblance of "P5" even if there are some conferences making noticeably more

You're leaving out Amazon and Apple, both of which are sitting on more cash than ESPN and The Mouse, and both of which really want to bolster their services, and one, Amazon, has already been dipping their toes in sports streaming/partnerships.  As well, AT&T didn't spend $85 billion dollars on Time Warner just to sit on it and do nothing.

The people in the other companies (Amazon, Apple, AT&T/Warner/etc.) who are making these actual decisions are not necessarily looking at things like OOC games and the like, the bean counters are looking at overall footprints and markets, and while they would like the conferences to have good OOC games, their first priority is getting their foot in the door and getting some of the pie.

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texifornia

texifornia 56519

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4 hours ago, aggie08 said:

I'm going to laugh pretty damn hard when Saban retires or goes to the NFL next year after growing tired of their ungrateful, dumbass fans rioting over not winning a National Championship for three whole years. After Alabama, who in the SEC is even close to a national brand that could provide decent return on investment? Ain't nobody west of Texas gives a shit about Georgia or LSU.

LSU and Florida have huge national fanbases. 

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ButtFumble

ButtFumble 5158

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26 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

You're leaving out Amazon and Apple, both of which are sitting on more cash than ESPN and The Mouse, and both of which really want to bolster their services, and one, Amazon, has already been dipping their toes in sports streaming/partnerships.  As well, AT&T didn't spend $85 billion dollars on Time Warner just to sit on it and do nothing.

The people in the other companies (Amazon, Apple, AT&T/Warner/etc.) who are making these actual decisions are not necessarily looking at things like OOC games and the like, the bean counters are looking at overall footprints and markets, and while they would like the conferences to have good OOC games, their first priority is getting their foot in the door and getting some of the pie.

while this COULD happen there are a few issues

1. at some point these streaming companies need to step up

none of them stepped up for any part of the Big 10

none of them stepped up to even sniff the AAC

none of them stepped up to sniff the MWC

the Big 10 is in places where cable TV has existed for decades and decades with highly developed infrastructure that has good connectivity (but still issues listed below)

the MWC deal is for not a great deal of money and has a number of programs that are in places like California that again has highly developed streaming infrastructure along with many of those companies......fast growing places like Utah with new infrastructure and Colorado as well with newer infrastructure and tech companies......sure the MWC has some far away outpost, but the value was so low it would be an easy opportunity to buy it to get the ball rolling and develop things

the AAC value was really not that much more expensive and there was ZERO interest

2. none of them seem to be stepping up to make a bid for the SEC SEC SEC and a small amount of content that would be very popular.....sure the reported money is stupid high (beyond stupid high) but no one seems to be looking at it

and yes the southern infrastructure in places besides Florida is probably some of the shittiest out there and it is easier to slap a dish in a trailer than to run fiber or to upgrade a cable plant to deliver anything other than old school video, but there seems to be no interest in any SEC SEC SEC content from streaming companies so far

3. with streaming your value becomes readily apparent......there is a lot less chance to cram shitty 3rd tier networks on customers that do not even like sports because they can't get disney bullshit content on cable or dish without paying for 12 espn networks as well

streaming CAN have that aspect, but that is a great way to lose subscribers or never gain them by trying to turn streaming into thesame cable TV bullshit just coming at you a slightly different way

4. it was mentioned earlier in this thread how shitty espn is run......well fuck me AT&T makes espn look well run and like a smoothly operated machine

AT&T is the company that bought DirectTV, told their customers they were dropping UVerse TV because they wanted to take the UVerse TV bandwidth and turn it over to internet bandwidth (which makes a massive amount of SENSE) and that everyone needed to start looking at getting "traditional TV" from Direct TV only to 9 months later tell everyone that DIrect TV is probably going away and at some point they all need to be careful because satellites will probably be crashing to earth after AT&T just gives up on them and stops maintaining them

never mind the fact that DirectTV exist for all those people that live in BFE that can't get quality high speed internet and the fact that the fiber, telco, and cable infrastructure of AT&T hardly comes close to covering most of the USA while they can still compete nationally (and really internationally) for TV subs with DirectTV....but AT&T is just going to fuck off all those customers and I suppose let them walk over to Dish after Dish laughs at AT&T trying to get them to pay them for anything left of DirectTV (although Dish is not much better run they might massively over pay because they are fucking stupid too, but AT&T will probably find a way to checkmate them and fuck that up)

currently only GE might be run more shitty than AT&T

5. in general in my opinion currently in the USA internet infrastructure especially at the "last mile" level where it matters most is getting shittier and being invested in less and being more poorly maintained.....and that is what is controlled by some of the shittiest companies in the world like AT&T, Cox, Charter, Comcrap, Altice, Verizon and the like and what they do not control they are selling off to other underfunded shit companies (like Altice and worse)  that think they will just keep collecting subscriber fees forever and bump prices up while cramming more shit content they do not even negotiate hard to accept and making no meaningful investment in infrastructure and thinking that rebranding their service under another stupid name makes people think they have better service and oh hey I can talk to my remote control....BFD

the only saving grace MIGHT be G5, but again that goes right back to the same shit companies for the most part

so all of these streaming companies better wake up to the fact that the USA has shit infrastructure for streaming currently and it is getting worse not better and it is controlled by shit companies that are so poorly run they compete with themselves to offer different shitty products that are poorly bundled and offer a shit overall customer experience wrapped in fucked up branding coated in over priced garbage

 

Edited by ButtFumble
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Randolph Duke

Randolph Duke 4034

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4 hours ago, ButtFumble said:

while this COULD happen there are a few issues

1. at some point these streaming companies need to step up

none of them stepped up for any part of the Big 10

none of them stepped up to even sniff the AAC

none of them stepped up to sniff the MWC

the Big 10 is in places where cable TV has existed for decades and decades with highly developed infrastructure that has good connectivity (but still issues listed below)

the MWC deal is for not a great deal of money and has a number of programs that are in places like California that again has highly developed streaming infrastructure along with many of those companies......fast growing places like Utah with new infrastructure and Colorado as well with newer infrastructure and tech companies......sure the MWC has some far away outpost, but the value was so low it would be an easy opportunity to buy it to get the ball rolling and develop things

the AAC value was really not that much more expensive and there was ZERO interest

2. none of them seem to be stepping up to make a bid for the SEC SEC SEC and a small amount of content that would be very popular.....sure the reported money is stupid high (beyond stupid high) but no one seems to be looking at it

and yes the southern infrastructure in places besides Florida is probably some of the shittiest out there and it is easier to slap a dish in a trailer than to run fiber or to upgrade a cable plant to deliver anything other than old school video, but there seems to be no interest in any SEC SEC SEC content from streaming companies so far

3. with streaming your value becomes readily apparent......there is a lot less chance to cram shitty 3rd tier networks on customers that do not even like sports because they can't get disney bullshit content on cable or dish without paying for 12 espn networks as well

streaming CAN have that aspect, but that is a great way to lose subscribers or never gain them by trying to turn streaming into thesame cable TV bullshit just coming at you a slightly different way

4. it was mentioned earlier in this thread how shitty espn is run......well fuck me AT&T makes espn look well run and like a smoothly operated machine

AT&T is the company that bought DirectTV, told their customers they were dropping UVerse TV because they wanted to take the UVerse TV bandwidth and turn it over to internet bandwidth (which makes a massive amount of SENSE) and that everyone needed to start looking at getting "traditional TV" from Direct TV only to 9 months later tell everyone that DIrect TV is probably going away and at some point they all need to be careful because satellites will probably be crashing to earth after AT&T just gives up on them and stops maintaining them

never mind the fact that DirectTV exist for all those people that live in BFE that can't get quality high speed internet and the fact that the fiber, telco, and cable infrastructure of AT&T hardly comes close to covering most of the USA while they can still compete nationally (and really internationally) for TV subs with DirectTV....but AT&T is just going to fuck off all those customers and I suppose let them walk over to Dish after Dish laughs at AT&T trying to get them to pay them for anything left of DirectTV (although Dish is not much better run they might massively over pay because they are fucking stupid too, but AT&T will probably find a way to checkmate them and fuck that up)

currently only GE might be run more shitty than AT&T

5. in general in my opinion currently in the USA internet infrastructure especially at the "last mile" level where it matters most is getting shittier and being invested in less and being more poorly maintained.....and that is what is controlled by some of the shittiest companies in the world like AT&T, Cox, Charter, Comcrap, Altice, Verizon and the like and what they do not control they are selling off to other underfunded shit companies (like Altice and worse)  that think they will just keep collecting subscriber fees forever and bump prices up while cramming more shit content they do not even negotiate hard to accept and making no meaningful investment in infrastructure and thinking that rebranding their service under another stupid name makes people think they have better service and oh hey I can talk to my remote control....BFD

the only saving grace MIGHT be G5, but again that goes right back to the same shit companies for the most part

so all of these streaming companies better wake up to the fact that the USA has shit infrastructure for streaming currently and it is getting worse not better and it is controlled by shit companies that are so poorly run they compete with themselves to offer different shitty products that are poorly bundled and offer a shit overall customer experience wrapped in fucked up branding coated in over priced garbage

 

I don’t ever again want to hear anyone complain about the length of any of my posts. 

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kopp0e

kopp0e 1135

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5 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

I would love to see amazon make a move. Easiest streaming out there 

Don't be surprised if Amazon doesn't eventually look to purchase FOX outright (along with a film production arm)...

As of now ESPN seems to be positioning for a move similar to ACC raid of BigEast in 2011, one league lags far behind in revenues:

PAC averages $31 million per year total for all 3 tiers now... That's $35 million or so, (per year) USC will be behind Arkansas on upcoming contract with Disney...

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Randolph Duke

Randolph Duke 4034

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30 minutes ago, Serak The Preparer said:

If he repeatedly posts the same lengthy thoughts with +/- 5% words changed between posts you will have a point. Until then you are much closer to Phlegm in terms of inanity.

Great news for you, after the first of the year they are launching a filter so simpletons don’t get shown any post longer than their 140 character attention span. 

 

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kopp0e

kopp0e 1135

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What if XII winds up with a media package as adding best PAC brands:

FOX _ CBS 1st tier... 11am FOX (or) 2:30pm - 6pm FOX/ 2:30pm CBS
FOX _ ESPN 2nd tier... 11am (or) 2:30 - 6pm FS1/ 11am (or) 2:30 - 6pm ESPN

Meanwhile, ESPN expands for all rights of 3rd tier.../ expands league footprint in process... Could that pay SEC/ B1G type revenues..?

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