JonDMiller
Publisher/Founder
Andy Staples of Sports Illustrated has penned an excellent article that looks at the resumes of possible Big Ten invitees and their ramifications to the new Big Ten, including financial aspects, linked here.
In his article, he links to another excellent piece that focuses on the economic impact a school like Missouri could add to the Big Ten, linked here.
And in today’s Detroit News, Big Ten Network analyst Gerry DiNardo says he sees Notre Dame joining a 16-team Big Ten, linked here. DiNardo is not some Notre Dame outlander; he was an All American for the Irish in the 1970’s and was part of a national championship team.
I know that we have spent a lot of time focusing on this topic, and we will continue to do so as new or fresh items come across my desk.
We spend a lot of time discussing the possible new schools related to the Big Ten, and we talk somewhat nebulously about their financial impact to the league, which is why I have felt all along and dating back to the early years of this decade that Rutgers would be a part of future Big Ten expansion. It’s the same reason why I think Missouri will be a part of that expansion, and obviously why Notre Dame would be a great addition.
Take a look at these numbers:
There are 2.2 million cable households in Missouri, according the second article linked above. The Big Ten Network gets approximately $.70 cents per every cable subscriber withing the Big Ten footprint, because the network is on the basic tier package. Outside the footprint, the network is on a sports tier that is an additional cost, so the network averages around $.10 cents per cable subscriber in those areas.
In Missouri, the Big Ten gets around $220,000 per month from cable subscription revenues. If Mizzou were added to the Big Ten, and the Big Ten Network went from the sports tier package to the basic cable package, cable subscription revenues for the league could increase to $1.54 million dollars per month. On an annual basis, you are looking at going from $2,640,000 to $18,480,000. Last year, every Big Ten team was paid roughly $21,000,000 dollars from television revenues the league earned via the Big Ten Network, ESPN, CBS and ABC. So Missouri would nearly be paying its own freight into the league on increased cable subscription revenues alone.
Apply this same aspect to Rutgers and their 3.1 million cable subscribers on Cablevision; $3,720,000 subscription revenue per year to $26,040,000.
As of late, Andy Katz of ESPN reported Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt and Maryland as possible Big Ten additions.
Maryland is the only one of those three that seems to fit geographically, especially if you add Rutgers. You also then add the state of Maryland and their cable TV households, plus the District of Columbia, plus northeast Virginia and cities like Arlington. Maryland’s campus is northeast of the Mall in DC, where Arlington is just SW of the Mall. Its campus is a DC suburb, basically. You are talking a lot of people.
So I did some digging for TV households in Maryland…and I found a discussion on a Boston College website that was talking about the future of the Big East if teams like Rutgers and Syracuse left, and whom they might look to add. One of them was Maryland, a state whose population is on par with Wisconsin and Missouri. Here is the link to that.
I am not saying this is ‘the word’ on Maryland TV households, but they estimated that there are roughly 3.6 million TV households…so you would be talking about money akin to Rutgers, if not greater if you add in DC and NE Virginia.
Then of course, there is Notre Dame. You cannot add their home state of Indiana, because they are already in the Big Ten footprint. But when you factor in the Catholic connection, you can start picking off cable companies around the nation. Notre Dame has strong ties in Texas, Southern California and New York, through historic Irish-Catholic connections.
When you start to factor in the kind of money the Big Ten Network could earn from such cable companies adding the BTN to the basic cable tier with Notre Dame’s involvement, the numbers are hard to grasp but also potentially mind blowing. You likely get New York City, you might get Miami, as the southeast coast of Florida is an east coast retiree haven.
It seems not a matter of if, rather, a matter of when the Big Ten expands to 16 teams and the athletic departments in the league start depositing north or $35 million dollars per year on TV revenues alone from the Big Ten Network.
This link takes you to athletic department revenues from the end of the 2008 fiscal year: LINK
There are 118 Division I teams listed there…and schools 65-118 earned less than $35,000,000 per year from their entire athletic department revenue streams.
Iowa State was 63rd on the list, and they generated less than $39 million.
How in the world can schools like that compete with schools in the Big Ten in athletics when the financial playing field is so unbalanced? And we haven’t even factored in ADVERTISING revenues from the expanded network, just cable subscription revenues.
The answer is simple; they won’t be able to.
We are heading towards a future where there will be four or so superconferences made up of 64 or so teams. That will be your new Division I. This will also change the bowl landscape, and perhaps pave a way for a playoff system; the money will match the demand for it, even though I am not interested in a playoff.
Schools like Iowa State will likely find their way into one of the superconferences and they will reap in revenue sharing, but likely nothing like the Big Ten or SEC.
Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick said weeks ago that the Irish would likely have to take a long hard look at joining a conference if there was going to be a seismic shift in college football.
Get ready Jack, the big one is coming. Because if you are not presently in the Big Ten or SEC, or one of the teams that will be, your house is built on sand, with few exceptions. Perhaps you are one of those exceptions..then again, if you don’t have Big Ten schools to play on NBC, you might not be.
In his article, he links to another excellent piece that focuses on the economic impact a school like Missouri could add to the Big Ten, linked here.
And in today’s Detroit News, Big Ten Network analyst Gerry DiNardo says he sees Notre Dame joining a 16-team Big Ten, linked here. DiNardo is not some Notre Dame outlander; he was an All American for the Irish in the 1970’s and was part of a national championship team.
I know that we have spent a lot of time focusing on this topic, and we will continue to do so as new or fresh items come across my desk.
We spend a lot of time discussing the possible new schools related to the Big Ten, and we talk somewhat nebulously about their financial impact to the league, which is why I have felt all along and dating back to the early years of this decade that Rutgers would be a part of future Big Ten expansion. It’s the same reason why I think Missouri will be a part of that expansion, and obviously why Notre Dame would be a great addition.
Take a look at these numbers:
There are 2.2 million cable households in Missouri, according the second article linked above. The Big Ten Network gets approximately $.70 cents per every cable subscriber withing the Big Ten footprint, because the network is on the basic tier package. Outside the footprint, the network is on a sports tier that is an additional cost, so the network averages around $.10 cents per cable subscriber in those areas.
In Missouri, the Big Ten gets around $220,000 per month from cable subscription revenues. If Mizzou were added to the Big Ten, and the Big Ten Network went from the sports tier package to the basic cable package, cable subscription revenues for the league could increase to $1.54 million dollars per month. On an annual basis, you are looking at going from $2,640,000 to $18,480,000. Last year, every Big Ten team was paid roughly $21,000,000 dollars from television revenues the league earned via the Big Ten Network, ESPN, CBS and ABC. So Missouri would nearly be paying its own freight into the league on increased cable subscription revenues alone.
Apply this same aspect to Rutgers and their 3.1 million cable subscribers on Cablevision; $3,720,000 subscription revenue per year to $26,040,000.
As of late, Andy Katz of ESPN reported Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt and Maryland as possible Big Ten additions.
Maryland is the only one of those three that seems to fit geographically, especially if you add Rutgers. You also then add the state of Maryland and their cable TV households, plus the District of Columbia, plus northeast Virginia and cities like Arlington. Maryland’s campus is northeast of the Mall in DC, where Arlington is just SW of the Mall. Its campus is a DC suburb, basically. You are talking a lot of people.
So I did some digging for TV households in Maryland…and I found a discussion on a Boston College website that was talking about the future of the Big East if teams like Rutgers and Syracuse left, and whom they might look to add. One of them was Maryland, a state whose population is on par with Wisconsin and Missouri. Here is the link to that.
I am not saying this is ‘the word’ on Maryland TV households, but they estimated that there are roughly 3.6 million TV households…so you would be talking about money akin to Rutgers, if not greater if you add in DC and NE Virginia.
Then of course, there is Notre Dame. You cannot add their home state of Indiana, because they are already in the Big Ten footprint. But when you factor in the Catholic connection, you can start picking off cable companies around the nation. Notre Dame has strong ties in Texas, Southern California and New York, through historic Irish-Catholic connections.
When you start to factor in the kind of money the Big Ten Network could earn from such cable companies adding the BTN to the basic cable tier with Notre Dame’s involvement, the numbers are hard to grasp but also potentially mind blowing. You likely get New York City, you might get Miami, as the southeast coast of Florida is an east coast retiree haven.
It seems not a matter of if, rather, a matter of when the Big Ten expands to 16 teams and the athletic departments in the league start depositing north or $35 million dollars per year on TV revenues alone from the Big Ten Network.
This link takes you to athletic department revenues from the end of the 2008 fiscal year: LINK
There are 118 Division I teams listed there…and schools 65-118 earned less than $35,000,000 per year from their entire athletic department revenue streams.
Iowa State was 63rd on the list, and they generated less than $39 million.
How in the world can schools like that compete with schools in the Big Ten in athletics when the financial playing field is so unbalanced? And we haven’t even factored in ADVERTISING revenues from the expanded network, just cable subscription revenues.
The answer is simple; they won’t be able to.
We are heading towards a future where there will be four or so superconferences made up of 64 or so teams. That will be your new Division I. This will also change the bowl landscape, and perhaps pave a way for a playoff system; the money will match the demand for it, even though I am not interested in a playoff.
Schools like Iowa State will likely find their way into one of the superconferences and they will reap in revenue sharing, but likely nothing like the Big Ten or SEC.
Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick said weeks ago that the Irish would likely have to take a long hard look at joining a conference if there was going to be a seismic shift in college football.
Get ready Jack, the big one is coming. Because if you are not presently in the Big Ten or SEC, or one of the teams that will be, your house is built on sand, with few exceptions. Perhaps you are one of those exceptions..then again, if you don’t have Big Ten schools to play on NBC, you might not be.
