Our problem is that absent a second bidder, ESPN has absolutely no reason to offer The American anything other than a token increase.
Yep, we will get what the market says we are worth. That said, ESPN had the right to match any offer last time and don’t this time (at least I think that’s right). That drove down the incentive to bid. Not to mention we were a new league. I think there will be more bidders this time which will obviously help.
The talk of $20-30M is absolute crazy talk though. We won’t sniff that.
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That’s certainly what they did last time, because they knew they had the right to match any offer that came from others later.
I believe I read somewhere that they don’t have that right this time around, which will hopefully result in a higher initial offer than last time.
Edit: you beat me to it rtcoog
Let’s get the most money possible from the TV deal
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And a second bidder won’t want to overpay for content like ESPN did. I hope I am wrong and the AAC gets stupid money like $20M per but I don’t expect it.
If there is only one bidder then it is not market but rather a monopoly.
It’s only a monopoly if no one else can bid or if there is only one player. That’s not the case here. While ESPN clearly leads in this space, there are other options (Fox, NBC, streaming, etc.). There could be no other serious bidders because no others are interested.
That said, we had another bidder last time, IIRC. NBC Sports bid but didn’t throw much at us. That was probably because of ESPN’s ability to match (which was contractual).
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Yep, NBC offered what we have in the current contract and ESPN matched.
We have a window to negotiate with ESPN starting in February; after a year, if no deal is reached, we are free to negotiate with anyone else. If we get an offer from someone else, ESPN can match or exceed the offer, but cannot offer less…basically, they can match, but we don’t have to accept this time.
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Can you imagine if Amazon got involved and started making ESPN poop themselves because we were getting what we deserved and had access to the playoffs. UH is eating nothing but Whole Foods. We need to win this year to show that we are here and waiting. Then theres gonna be the problem if this ever happens should we stay where we are at or leave.
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If Amazon got involved, it would change everything as they would be a giant amongst toddlers financially.
They are branching out to pro football.
And the “other” football.
A good summary from January of 2018.
If Aresco can sell them on the AAC as their entry into college football (there’s no one else up for a TV deal for 5 years or more) …
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I don’t see Amazon going after anything that’s not a top level market. I don’t know if college football qualifies, and if it does I bet they would go after one of the p5. None of their moves so far have been short of that. If Aresco does manage any type of deal with Amazon then he is a good negotiator.
Perhaps. But with no P5 contracts up for renewal or negotiation any time soon, I wouldn’t be too sure that they’d be willing to simply punt (pun intended) on the lucrative college football landscape for the next five years or more.
Five years is an eternity. They can start out quite affordably in college football with the AAC and expand to the P5 if and when they feel it’s worth it.
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