This ESPN deal with the NCAA to cover more championships and tell more stories flies in the face of recent broadcast agreements.
Is it that the Disney-owned network overpaid when it agreed to an eight-year, $920 million extension to its current media rights package of 40 NCAA championships that includes women’s March Madness?
Or is it getting ahead of the curve on the worth of the women’s tournament and olympic sports?
As Front Office Sports reported, ESPN will pay out an average of $115 million per year to the NCAA for the right to cover these events. The women’s March Madness part of the deal is worth $65 million.
What makes this deal different is that ESPN has recently been reluctant to pay the high prices for rights. Even after such a successful run of College Football Playoffs, ESPN could lose out to other networks like Fox in the future. But this new deal is three times what the old one was — $34 million per year for 29 championships.
What’s in the ESPN deal with the NCAA?
There are now 40 sports for which ESPN will broadcast championships.
- Men’s Championships – football (FCS, DII & DIII), soccer, cross country, water polo, indoor track & field, swimming and diving, wrestling, ice hockey, gymnastics, fencing, volleyball, lacrosse, outdoor track & field, tennis, baseball and basketball (including DII semifinals and DIII semifinals and championship), men’s National Invitation Tournament (NIT) and NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship (international rights).
- Women’s Championships – soccer, field hockey, volleyball (including DII & DIII), cross country, indoor track & field, swimming and diving, basketball (including DII & DIII) and Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament (WBIT), ice hockey, bowling, gymnastics, fencing, beach volleyball, lacrosse, outdoor track & field, tennis, softball, and water polo.
The deal calls for ESPN to broadcast 2,300 hours of championships on its linear and digital platforms annually, with more than 800 hours of NCAA championships on ESPN linear networks each year.