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Fox steps in to
pick up college bowls
Paying $330M for Sugar, Orange and Fiesta
When ABC showed little interest in
renewing its $600 million Bowl Championship Series deal, there was Fox waiting in the
stands to make an offer.
And Fox did just that yesterday, agreeing to pay a reported $330 million to
air the Fiesta, Orange and Sugar Bowls between 2007 and 2010, as well as a newly created
national championship bowl game airing from 2007 to 2009.
Fox, in agreeing to pay some $80-plus million per year, outbid ABC, which offered
just $17 million per game, or $68 million. There were reports that Fox was considering
paying considerably more.
ABC carried the BCS for the first eight years of its existence under a
contract that expires in 2007. It pulled out of the bidding abruptly last week, leaving
Fox as the games’ only apparent suitor, though there were reports that CBS was also
interested.
ABC, which did renew a separate deal to rights for the BCS-affiliated Rose
Bowl for $30 million per year, apparently had grown disenchanted by flagging ratings for
the games combined with decreasing value.
During testimony before the NCAA’s Knight Commission on Intercollegiate
Athletics in March, ABC Sports senior vice president for programming Loren Matthews said
that since the economy’s collapse in 2001, the BCS had gone from profitable to not.
This year the household rating for the title game hit its second-lowest point
in its six-year history, despite huge controversy over which teams should have been
playing in the game. Ratings for two other BCS games were also down compared with the
previous year.
The last two BCS title games (the 2004 Sugar Bowl and 2003 Fiesta Bowl)
averaged a 15.0 rating and 26 share.
This is the first major foray into college football for Fox. It has aired the
Cotton Bowl since 1999, but that bowl is not BCS-affiliated and carries far less
prestige.
Yesterday's deal will certainly goose up speculation about Fox's rumored
ambitions to launch a national sports network that would rival ESPN. The BCS deal would
serve as a logical launch pad.
News Corp. head Rupert Murdoch has said that such a network would need
a stiff flag, such as the NFL or perhaps college football, to hook viewers. While Fox
promised that the games will air on its broadcast network and not on cable, having the
synergy to promote the BCS on a cable channel would still be a major boon.
Fox, which renewed its NFL rights deal earlier this month, is also interested
in a newly established package of cable pro-football games that would air in primetime
between Thanksgiving and Christmas. With that plus college football, a new network would
have a lot to build on.
According to the new deal, a fifth BCS game will be added to the current four
in 2007. That game will be played a week or so after the others have finished, at the same
location as one of the other four bowls, pitting the No. 1 and No. 2 teams against each
other for the national title.
ABC will carry that game in 2010 as part of its Rose Bowl rights deal
through 2014. That extra game and its dilution of ad prices was part of the reason ABC
dropped out of the bidding. The network will lose an estimated $106 million on BCS rights
fees over the next two years.
The Fox deal also covers national radio rights, internet rights, all
sponsorships and complementary programming on Fox and FSN. |
Nov. 23,
2004 © 2004 Media Life
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