UT, ESPN Reach 20-Year $300 Million Dollar Deal

From Texas Sports:

Video: Watch live as UT Athletics makes a major media announcement at 2 p.m. Central [Jan. 19, 2011]

Athletics Directors DeLoss Dodds and Chris Plonsky will be joined by UT Austin President Bill Super Powers, ESPN Senior Vice President Burke Warhammer Magnus…

Watch it here.

or student documentaries.

Something along the lines of “Texas Co-Eds Gone Wild”, I would hope.

Relegated to cable. Ha!

The Clipper Cooper Show, imo.

For comparison…

Texas annual broadcast rights = $15M (average) from Longhorn Network + $10M from IMG for multimedia rights + $12M from Big12 TV rights = $37M total

If new Big12 TV estimates are to be believed ($17-20M), Texas is between $42M and $45M annually from Longhorn Network, IMG, & Big 12 TV deals.

Ohio State, on the other hand, makes $20M from Big10 TV rights including its Network and $12 from IMG in multimedia rights and can’t form own network.

Ohio State is Texas’ nearest comparable from an athletic revenue standpoint.

This thing got a name?

And what if anything will this mean for BEVO-D?

BEVO-D was “spring training” for the Longhorn Network — in its present form it will go away.

How about a weekly “30 Minutes of Zen” show hosted by Augie Garrido?

• Non-athletic events will also be a staple of the network, including guest speakers on campus, or student documentaries. "This will be high-level, entertaining cultural, music, scientific, Discovery Channel, History Channel kind of stuff," Powers said.

Mehhh. The future is not Discovery or History Channel kind of stuff. Those networks are producing more reality-based programming. Production-quality is fine and may distinguish it from public access, but we’d be better off as part of a Conference network, where we could get more live sports programming and possibly on-demand, interactive, internet UT programming.

Wait a minute ,lets join the Big 10 to get their package ( of crap)

This sounds like a tremendous boon not only for Belmont, but for the Communications school and the RTF department in particular. I am very pleased, particularly by the inclusion of non-sports programming to fill some of the hours between sports programming. This is a fantastic development all the way around. Kudos to all involved!

Eskimohorn,

I disagree. This channel is going to set UT apart from every other university in the country. It needs to showcase everything about UT, Austin, and the state of Texas, including sports, academics, research, and original programming. This is more than just becoming another sports network.

Felonious, I agree. This could make the RTF department tops in the country within 5-10 years.

I’m most excited about potentially being able to see more than 3 baseball games on TV a year and ~3 in person.

So are Dish and D-TV both still saying “F Off” to carrying it?

I’m most excited about potentially being able to see more than 3 baseball games on TV a year and ~3 in person.

This!

@I Must Be Old - no, they just haven’t signed the deal to carry it yet. Those would be the next two logical steps.

Over/ under for number of projected viewers in OK or LA? Whatever that number is, give me the under.

jeff, 3 in okla. one top recruit and his parents.

Seems odd that there’s no mention of the internet/streaming component. Considering the success of ESPN3, I’d imagine this would’ve definitely been part of the package. Also, CBS Sports already streams a lot of the baseball games on TexasSports.tv, so it doesn’t seem too far of a stretch that this whole channel would be available online.

Ok, I’m only complaining because I’m not about to buy a cable TV package just for this (Time Warner in Austin is jacking their cable prices up 15% for no good reason just now).

online streaming is the next generation of viewing. Many people are dropping cable and going to that now. If it weren’t for a very few channels that I can’t get online, I would be there now as well.

* Non-athletic events will also be a staple of the network, including guest speakers on campus, or student documentaries.

BC video podcasts?

And does anyone know if they’re looking for a stats show? Ha.

non-athletic programming will be a bonus. educational shit from top UT professors? Freaking awesome. Sorry if that makes me a nerd, but that is gonna be bad ass. I can’t tell you how many of my former professors from the petroleum department were interviewed after the BP oil spill. I might have hated those professors (and the oil industry that i will never work for), but there are some of the top minds in the country.

Sign me up.

Clipper Cooper is the only reality show allowed on Longhorn Network.

Maybe we can contract some co-eds from Scottish Rite Dormitory to participate in a UT Austin Big Brother spinoff. Or a live mud wrestling broadcast at the ZTA house.

The possibilites are ENDLESS!!!!

Seems odd that there’s no mention of the internet/streaming component. Considering the success of ESPN3, I’d imagine this would’ve definitely been part of the package.

They are a vital part of the package, in fact a strong reason for ESPN to be so interested in doing the deal.

So it’s going to be like history channel? Cool, I look forward to countless hour-long specials on burnt-orange nazis, aliens, ghosts, and Nostradamus.

How about they televise all of the football practices so we don’t have to read some mindless website for practice reports

I do wonder why the 20 year deal (aside from the market buzz) - the whole media business seems to be morphing so quickly that 20 years is two or three lifetimes - there must be outs or ways to renegotiate if something truly disruptive comes along.

Hopefully they will have an internet component. I don’t see any statements that preclude that from being available at some point. How awesome would it be to have the ‘04 and ’05 Rose Bowls on demand? Or the big UT basketball game that you forgot to DVR and couldn’t see live last week?

I also agree that 20 years is a bit long to lock yourself into a media contract in this day and age.

Bill Powers was telling me about how UT has to become more productive and contain expenses as the cost of higher education has been increasing faster than inflation, and even faster than the cost of healthcare.

I wonder if some of this TV revenue is going to flow in the the general fund to help moderate the cost of tuition hikes and student fees. I also wonder if I’ll be able to get the UT channel on my DirecTV dish. As far as I’m concerned, Texas should be the biggest and the best, even if I have been living in California for the past 21 years.

Bill Byrne thinks this deal wont make money

http://espn.go.com/blog/dallas/colleges/post/_/id/4668908/ams-byrne-not-big-on-longhorn-network

He would know.

Hong, that article is from June and Byrne is poo-pooing the $3 to $5 million that Texas was projected to make from the deal at the time.

OU: Not the Joneses.

http://www.landthieves.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3814

Jc25 et al. bring up an interesting point.

What if anything do OU and A&M do to respond to this?

If college sports has become an arms race then the only reaction I can think of is, A network of their own and/or making a move to the SEC.

I really hope that Bill Little doesn’t get to host “Inside the Media Relations Studio” where he waxes nostalgically about the lessons learned during the Longhorns epic 1893 Thanksgiving Day victory over the “Champions of Texas” Dallas Football Club.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX6X_PwSH-0

“Hong, that article is from June and Byrne is poo-pooing the $3 to $5 million that Texas was projected to make from the deal at the time.

"

yes i know

I like the idea of ESPN paying us 12 mil per to do our recruiting for every sport, not just football.

I’m really surprised UT agreed to this long of term on a fixed rate deal. Given the inflation risk in today’s environment, $25 million is probably not going to be worth near as much in 20 years. However, the marketing value is priceless. Since this is a pioneer deal, there haven’t been a ton of contracts to use as comps. If someone is wrong, 20 years is a long time to be stuck in a shitty deal. And, you know what they say about pioneers, they sometimes get shot in the back with arrows. Plus, we are now in deeper with Israel. Thanks.

well, tech should thank us for paving the way for them.

On paper, I see a long-term franchise agreement between some swinging dick Texas oil baron/lawyer/car dealers and East Coast Jewish media magnates. What could go wrong in 20 years? I think UT is going to say fuck you, the first time ESPN has out-thought them on something and then the pissing match will ensue. That could be 3 weeks, 3 months, 3 years or never, but I bet the probability of it happening before 20 is greater than not. Bear in mind, you are the rookie in this deal and no matter how smart the guys calling the shots on your behalf are, ESPN has experience and industry insight in its corner. It sounds like a good deal and a lot of money. The term would just make me nervous.

It sounds like a good deal and a lot of money. The term would just make me nervous.

ded: First of all there are built in protections, if the money is a lot better than it is projected right now down the road, there is already a system in place to increase everybody’s piece of the pie. Texas basically has sweat equity in this deal. It is up to IMG and ESPN to market and sell it — which means it is in their best interest to get it out there.

Besides it’s not (all) about the money. This is a great marketing tool for the University, and for all sports. Women’s volleyball has been very strong, what if everyone of their home games is televised? How big could that be in recruiting?

Texas took a long time to try and build the best possible risk/reward situation. It isn’t perfect, but it’s damn good.

Dan Wetzel on Longhorn Network:

http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/slant/201101/longhorn-network-programming-schedule

So, they let you play high school games on here?

I don’t know much about media stuff, but it seems to me that ESPN’s share of the risk is far greater than UT’s. ESPN has committed to pouring $300 million into something that has never been done before. In fact, Chip Brown reiterated on the radio this morning that the $300mm figure is only for the broadcast rights; above and beyond that, ESPN is also footing the bill for the construction of “at least three” broadcast studios on campus and all of the associated video equipment costs, which is not at all insignificant.

Conversely, regardless of whether the network itself is a financial failure, UT just gets to sit back and count ESPN’s money. What if cable TV dies in ten years? What if another school swoops in with a better deal? Who cares? It’s all gravy anyway.

As srr50 says, the risk/reward situation is damn good.

one thing i hope to see a lot of is high school games in various sports. especially high interest playoff games. that would bring a lot of interest to the network and benefit the various high schools and the state in general. major playoff games at dkr broadcast all over the nation and to ships at sea (if it works that way) would be great exposure for our program as well.

another thing i hope to see is espn hedging its bet by promoting us, sort of like they do with the sec. i expect to see a lot of espn shots showing the north end zone, not the south end zone. (c’mon, deloss.)

To put all UT sports on TV will finally raise the heat on the under-performing coaches in some of those sports. You know who you are….