More money to be made with CBS?

I thought our new deal gave ESPN sole rights to all AAC sports. Maybe not. Am I missing something?

Earlier this year ESPN and the AAC announced a new deal that gives rights to AAC sports to ESPN. Part of this deal includes bringing more AAC content such as a majority of AAC basketball and even a significant number of football games to ESPN.

Some AAC games will still air on ESPN, ESPN 2, and ESPNU like they have in the past; however, many of the other games will be moving to ESPN+.

Content that in the past aired on CBS will for now continue as renewal talks with CBS have not started yet. All other content has a deal with ESPN and the new ESPN+.

2 Likes

Maybe basketball content?

Yeah. I think they have an ongoing right-of-refusal for some basketball games, so they keep getting some. It is a pretty marginal sum, from what I recall. Something like 100k a team for something like 10 games?

2 Likes

Yes. Its the right for just a handful of games. I think they only took 2 or 3 last year. Im parilex is in the ballpark on the number. The way I remember it, the contract gave CBS the rights to a certain number of “appearances”. I think it was like 10 or 12. But the thing is, an OOC game counts as one appearance----A conference game counts as 2 because both teams are AAC teams—thus 2 “:appearances”. So, the deal could max at 12 games or just 6 depending on the kind of games selected. Im not sure if there is any minimum. I think the pay depends on how many games are picked.

1 Like

Not crazy about espn politics but CBS is my “Can’t Be Seen” network…