overlooked in all this as one of the biggest driving forces is the upcoming CFP TV contract. It is estimated that the rights to that will be $1.9 billion. The current arrangement expires in 2025. Less conferences and going from say 80 teams to 60 = more $ for each of those. Some of that beyond a base amount for each league will also likely be tied to # of participants especially moving from 5 conferences to 3 voting on the setup/distribution. This $ goes beyond the individual conference media deals and disparities there.
Re: CFP TV contract - I think one thing that is being
Aug 3, 2023, 10:17 AM
Excellent point. If SEC and BIG can kill the PAC 12 and ACC and create more spots for their schools and also increase the payouts with less schools to feed, that may be big part of the analysis.
So much of this is numbers being crunched by EPSN, Fox etc and who will have playoffs right in future, etc. ESPN is surely analyzing if cheap price for ACC contract is worth playing hardball with in all this. May use as leverage for playoffs TV rights or portion at least.